I am interested in bringing together my research interests in gaming, learning and history to tackle societal challenges. Over the past few years I have sought to work across disciplines and with a breadth of external partners. I am Principal Investigator (PI) for funded projects on educational/research gaming, including Access to Wargaming in Education (AWARE), Gamestorm, Tempest, and the Glasgow Wargaming Initiative (GWI). 

In 2020, I received the Royal Historical Society UK Innovation in Teaching Award. Since 2019, I've been a Fellow of the RHS, Visiting Fellow at the British Library & Founder/Co-director of the Arts interdisciplinary Games & Gaming Research Lab (GGLab) at Glasgow University.

I have lectured at Glasgow since 2015, convening courses in American History, War Studies, Games History, and Intelligence/Security, receiving Teaching Excellence Awards in 2018 from the University & the College of Arts. My teaching has also included British/French Imperial History & Modern European Socio-cultural History.

My Manchester University Press monograph, The British Tradition of Minority Government (July 2018), uses declassified files to reveal hidden strategic dialogues in 1970s minority governments, making global comparisons & studying the 2017 Westminster Minority.

I have articles in areas ranging from the cinematic legacies of nuclear testing to rethinking intelligence gathering during the Cromwellian Protectorate.

My key areas of research interest include:

• Gaming/Gamification/Use of games in learning

• Space Security and Spaceflight History

• Nuclear History (including Nuclear Weapons Testing and Nuclear Diplomacy)

• Games and (War) Gaming History

• History of Technology (including sociopolitical and military effects of new technology)

• Modern American and British - Political/Military History (including minority governments/coalitions)

• Early Modern Intelligence History

List by: Type | Date

• Project Gamestorm (PI); Reinvigorating Research Funding, £23k (2022)
• “Exploring new cross-college ways of simulating ‘Earth environmental impacts’ of orbital debris/disaster” (PI); NERC Discipline Hopping, £3k (2022)
• Project AWARE (PI); Learning & Teaching Development Fund and further funding from partner organisations, £13.5k (2021)
• Glasgow Wargaming Initiative (GWI) (PI); Learning and Teaching Development Fund Grant, £4k (2020)
• British Library Eccles Centre Visiting Fellowship (2019-23)
• Cross-College Themes Funding - Games and Gaming Symposium (2019)

I am very happy to supervise on topics in American and British Political, Military, Technological and Sociocultural History in the Modern Era. I have also supervised topics on different areas of Early Modern History, with one interest being Cromwellian intelligence gathering.

My current broad areas of interest include:

• Nuclear technology (civil and military) – including nuclear colonialism, weapons testing, popular culture/filmic representations, intelligence, and memorialisation
• History of Space and Spaceflight
• Games and Gaming - including the use of history in games (whether physical or electronic), wargaming, game culture, the history of games/gaming, the uses of games in learning
• Political, military and sociocultural impacts of conflict
• Strategy (political, military or otherwise) - including elections, political coverage, minority government and coalitions

Current supervision includes:

• Hanna, Stephen
  Evaluating Military Intelligence in War: The Burma Theatre of World War Two as a case study in objective focused analysis
• O'Leary, Eleanor
  Valuing the Gaming Community: Preserving MMOs Through Co-Creation
• Pasternack, Rhys
  Dark Souls and the Borders of Belief

Previous dissertation supervision

I have previously supervised on a wide range of dissertation subjects at Undergraduate and Postgraduate Masters level, including:

• Reflections of a People’s General: Frederick C. Weyand and America’s Defeat in Vietnam 
• Interwar Air Control and the formation of Royal Air Force Doctrine
• Manned Orbiting Laboratory: America's Manned Military Spy Program in Space
• Media perceptions of the Postwar Occupation of Japan
• Comparative media coverage of Britain's Referenda on the European Union (1975 and 2016)

Awards

• UK Innovation in Teaching Award - Royal Historical Society (£1k) (2020)
• Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS) (2020)
• University Teaching Excellence Award - University of Glasgow (£2k) (2018)
• College of Arts Teaching Excellence Award - University of Glasgow (£1k) (2018)

Current Teaching

Postgraduate

• THE AMERICAN WAY OF WAR: FROM THE REVOLUTION TO THE WAR ON TERROR
• GAMES AND GAMING HISTORY
• INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS AND POLICY MAKING
• I also contribute to the MLitt in War Studies and Global Security Core Courses on the subject of the AIR BATTLE OVER JAPAN IN WW2.

Honours courses

• FROM THE SPACE RACE TO STAR WARS: US CONFLICT AND COOPERATION IN ORBIT, 1945-1999

I previously gave lectures/seminars to the MLitt in War Studies and Global Security Core Courses on the subject of: 

• NUCLEAR DIPLOMACY: FROM TRUMAN TO TRUMP

I previously taught the Honours courses:

• THE AGE OF EMPIRE: CONQUEST AND COLONIALISM IN THE 19TH CENTURY AND BEYOND

• ATOMIC DREAMS: SOCIETY, SCIENCE AND SOLDIERS IN NUCLEAR AMERICA, 1945-1979

I have also previously taught lectures/seminars on:

• HISTORY 2AM: SOCIETY, CULTURE & POLITICS IN NORTH AMERICA HIST2002
• HISTORY 2A: THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL HISTORY OF EUROPE, 1500-2000
• HISTORY 2B: AN INTRODUCTION TO GLOBAL HISTORY

Knowledge Exchange/Public Engagement

I am Co-director of the University's Games and Gaming Lab (GGLab) #GGatUofG

I have been Convener of EMWIP Early Modern Research Seminar Series at Glasgow since 2020.

I have been Social Media Officer for the Scottish centre for War Studies since December 2017: @UofGWarstudies