In my first years as an education researcher, I worked at the Education Observatory at the University of Wolverhampton. Between 2019 and 2021, I was the principal investigator of ‘Against the Odds’, a mixed-methods study into the progress of secondary students facing socio-economic disadvantages, funded by the Social Mobility Commission. I continue to provide policy advice to the Commission regarding educational inequalities. This work has included conducting rapid evidence assessments regarding the use of technology in schools, the impact of Sure Start, and the use of teacher assessment instead of examinations. In 2020, I co-led an ethnographic project for Birmingham City Council exploring the experiences of citizens as they engaged with the council’s services, including the city’s services for children with special educational needs. 

I trained as a physics teacher and taught science at secondary schools in Cambridgeshire. I continue to work directly with schools as a tutor and to work as a teacher educator through local authorities. I also work supporting teachers' action research projects. I am currently doing this across 10 schools in a multi-academy chain in Cambridge as part of ‘Creativity Collaboratives’, a national project exploring teaching for creativity funded by Arts Council England.

Prior to teaching, I worked as a historian and philosopher of science and published on the history and philosophy of measurement. I hold a master’s degree in mathematics from Cambridge University and a PhD in philosophy from Stanford University.