Staff profile

I have over twelve years of experience working in higher and adult further education, providing administrative and student support services. In these roles, I have supported a diverse range of students at a number of university and charity organisations. I have a particular passion for engaging in meaningful and credible activites aimed at widening access to education, previously having been involed in projects to support first generation scholars, mature students and individuals in need of humanitarian support. I am currently employed as a Learning and Teaching Administrator in the Department of Geography.

As well as developing a career in professional services, I have simultaneously progressed my academic interests and skills in the Department of History. Before moving to Durham in 2020 as a part time postgraduate researcher, I was educated at the University of York where I was awarded my BA in History, my MA by Research in History, and my MA in Political Theory for which I achieved the highest mark in the department.

Research

My research focuses on the theory and practice of incorporating other conscious species of animals into our historical narratives as historical actors. Rather than studying other species as passive objects of human cultures, I explore how historians can utilise interdisciplinary approaches to examine the past as co-constituted interspecies realities.

The current project that I am working on aims to historicise the entangled interspecies relations of ‘invasive species’. Previous studies of species who are currently categorised as invasive to the British Isles has been overwhelmingly undertaken by the sciences, with a particular emphasis placed on understanding how to violently control their presence. In contrast, my emphasis is on exploring where, when and how these animal-human relationships developed, as well as why they have frequently become violent to the point of human exterminatory behaviours.

In this context of historicising these relations, my research focuses on the violent resource competitions between particular human interests and ‘invasive American grey squirrels’. My aim is to not only explain this violence but to show how a small species of rodent has been consequential for the formation of multiple intersecting British landscapes (conceptual, cultural, ecological, economic, social, and political). Indeed, this thesis highlights how the successes of these grey squirrels during the twentieth century undermined notions of human sovereignty.

Once completed in early 2027, this research will be applied in collaboration with animal welfare and rights activists to consider how violence towards these conscious species can be held more accountable and how more just interspecies futures can be conceptualised.

Teaching

I have taught level 1 history undergraduates on two different modules:

2024-2025: Connected Histories: Early Modern Europe, c.1450 – c.1750

2020-2021: Wars and Welfare: English Society, c.1900 – c.1951

In addition, I have also tutored level 2 history undergraduates as part of the university’s widening participation programme:

2024-2025: Conversations with History