Growing up in Guernsey, I moved to the UK to attend university, and started working at Oxford in 2011 on completion of my Geography doctorate (University of Plymouth). I joined the Brasenose community in 2015 as a stipendiary lecturer in Human Geography, and when we admitted only four geographers into the college each year. I’m delighted that our Geography college community has now grown to admit eight students per year. I am also a Fellow of Keble College, and I convene papers covering international migration as part of the Human Sciences undergraduate degree, here in Oxford. Through my studies and research, I have been fortunate to develop international connections with universities in France, and maintain my links with Guernsey.

I tutor on the more human geographical components of the Geography degree course. This includes:

First year teaching on the Human Geography paper, and qualitative methods of Geographical Techniques. I also run study skills classes.

FHS (second year – third year) teaching on Space, Place and Society, Environmental Geography, and Geographical Techniques. I also supervise dissertation projects.

I contribute to research in three different areas: international migration & citizenship, transport studies, and island studies.

My migration research centres on how migrants negotiate cross-border lives and the role of citizenship in fostering a sense of belonging. My doctoral research examined Britons living in France, as examples of EU citizens moving within the space of the EU. In 2016, the Brexit referendum result impacted this population considerably, and I have been examining how Britons in France responded to Brexit emotionally, practically and strategically, sometimes negotiating new forms of citizenship. Some of my current work in this field examines the impact of Brexit on Britons with second homes in France.

In transport geography, my expertise lies in urban transit, and I have published papers and reports on the economic impacts of both light rail systems, and bus rapid transit, while presenting some of this work to the Parliamentary Light Rail Group at the House of Commons. Currently, I am involved in a research project with the Institute of Railway Research, University of Huddersfield, to produce a Tram-Train Best-Practice Guide that aims to identify and promote reduction of the economic and technical barriers that can hinder effective delivery of Tram-Train systems, particularly in UK urban centres.

Building on my personal connections with the Channel Islands, my more recent research examines the relational turn in Island Studies by focusing upon the intertidal zone and the geological through the example of Guernsey. Asking the question of what an island is, and its supposed edges, I problematise conventional understandings of island, land and sea, and experiment with ideas of (in)visibility and (dis)connection.