Email: portico-services@ucl.ac.uk
Help Desk: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ras/portico/helpdesk
- Lecturer- Sociology of the Media and Higher Education
- IOE - Education, Practice & Society
- UCL Institute of Education
I joined UCL in May 2020. Previously I was a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge from 2017-2020, and I was an Associate Lecturer in the Department of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London, co-convening the MA in Gender, Media and Culture from 2016-2017.
Originally from New Zealand, I completed a BA in Feminist Studies and Psychology, and a MSc in Industrial and Organisational Psychology, at the University of Canterbury (NZ). My dissertation investigated how power operates within a university during organisational change. After graduating I worked as an organisational change management consultant at Accenture in New Zealand and Singapore, started several small businesses, and was a consultant within global marketing agency, specialising in working with technology firms.
In 2011 I came to the UK to undertake a PhD in cultural studies at Goldsmiths, which I completed in 2016. My doctoral research conceptualised vulnerability as an ethical, political and methodological orientation through an in-depth examination of media reports of two asylum seekers who set their bodies on fire.




My wider research interest involves working with the complexities of vulnerability as a human condition and as a feminist method. My research has examined three related areas: a) the development of vulnerable writing within feminist methodological approaches to research; b) the relevance and role of vulnerability in determining institutional action, specifically in cases of harassment and violence; c) how individuals who are vulnerable encounter structures and systems.
I have been a co-PI and co-investigator on research projects examining aspects of sexual misconduct in higher education that have received funding from the British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant and the UK Office for Students Catalyst Fund. In 2019 I co-organised the Faculty and Staff Sexual Misconduct International Conference, held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which was funded by the United States National Science Foundation.
I am the Co-Director of The 1752 Group, a research and campaign organisation addressing staff sexual misconduct in the UK higher education sector, which I co-founded in 2016.
I enjoy public writing and have written articles and opinion pieces published in The Guardian, Times Higher Education, Research Professional News, WonkHE, HuffPost and openDemocracy.
At UCL I co-convene, teach and supervise on the Sociology of Education module within the MA Policy Studies in Education, MA Sociology of Education and MA Social Justice and Education. For the BSc Sociology I convene and teach the first year module, Global Issues: Interconnections and Disconnections, and I teach on the first year optional module, Sociology of Media.
I have strong commitment to ensuring a diverse range of perspectives are present in the classroom and curriculum, and I have an ongoing interest in developing a vulnerable pedagogic practice that is inclusive and supports and values students as contributors.
I have taught across postgraduate and undergraduate courses at Goldsmiths and the University of Cambridge, convening modules and teaching on topics including media theories, the politics of visibility in the digital age, politics of representation, political communication, racial and gender inequalities in higher education, social theory, queer theory, postcolonial theory, the body, sociological theories of identity and subjectivity, race, racism and ethnicity, and I have taught on research ethics and qualitative research methods at postgraduate level. I have also been invited to be a guest lecturer for three years at the University of Warwick, teaching on the Gender and Violence module within Sociology.