Prior to taking up this post, I was a Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Stirling (2017-2024) where I was laterly Research Director for the Divisions of Communications, Media and Culture and Programme Director for the MSc Media Management. 

I have previously held research and teaching posts at The Glasgow School of Art, Abertay University as well as consultancy research roles. I hold a PhD in Urban Studies from the University of Glasgow. 

I have over 15 years of predominantly academic research developing knowledge into the relationship between place and the cultural and creative industries (how they matter to each other) and, in particular, have developed leading scholarship on regional and non-metropolitan cultural activity. In my work I have been have been committed to extending  the geographical scope of research on the CCIs beyond ‘the usual suspects’ to more vernacular sites of creativity, to highlight the richness of activities taking place outside of metropolitan areas that have traditionally been the focus of creative economy interventions, and to highlight shortcomings in some of the provision of policy. My more recent projects also foreground how knowledge production and cultural value emerge from everyday, vernacular spaces, and how neglect of these spaces in dominant policy frameworks can deepen spatial inequalities. I aim to reflect on how cultural and social infrastructures are experienced, maintained, and made visible—particularly in places often excluded from mainstream creative economy discourse.

Since January 2024, I have been a Work Package Lead for Cultural and Natural Heirtage on the UKRI-funded £5m Local Policy Innovation Partnership 'Forth20' which aims to optimise outcomes from water resources in the Forth Water Basin’. 

I am also currently Academic lead for a Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC) funded project ‘Evidencing the social value of public libraries’ being carried out in collaboration with Stirling Libraries. 

I was also Principal-investigator on the recently completed Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) small grant-funded project  ‘Mapping Ecologies of Care in Creative Hubs during COVID-19’ with colleagues Dr Maria Velez-Serna and Dr Susan Berridge at the University of Stirling. 

List by: Type | Date

January 2024 – present, Co-investigator, Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Local Policy Innovation Partnership ‘Optimising Outcomes from Water Resources: Raising Levels in the Forth Water Basin’ WP Lead Culture and Natural Heritage

November 2023 – present, Academic lead, Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC), Public Library Improvement Fund ‘Evidencing the social value of public libraries’

March 2021 – October 2022, Principal-investigator, Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) small grant  ‘Mapping Ecologies of Care in Creative Hubs during COVID-19’

March 2017-March 2018 - Principal-investigator, RSE small grant  ‘From the margins to the centre: the role of creative hubs in supporting contemporary craft and creative workers in rural and remote geographies’

February 2017- July 2019 Co-investigator, Arts and Humanities Research Council Follow-on Funding, Knowledge Exchange Hubs for the Creative Economy, Design in Action ‘Design Innovation for New Growth (DING)’

September 2016- September 2017 Co-investigator - Carnegie grant ‘Nurturing Scottish Screen Industries Talent: The Case of Outlander’

December 2013 – December 2014 Co-investigator - RSE Arts & Humanities Research Workshop grant 'Shaping Scotland's Talent: Change, Flexibility and New Pathways in the Screen Industries

Convenor of the MSc Creative Industries and Cultural Policy