I am interested in everyday lives, and my research explores culture and everyday life in order to engage with social, economic and political changes affecting everyday spaces and places. I am particularly interested in contemporary approaches, and considerations, of space and place. 

Empirically, I am interested in everyday life in rural and urban spaces and places: how it is lived and experienced, but also how it is planned for, anticipated and imagined, for example, why people choose to live in one place and not another, to everyday materialities and specifically encounters and experiences of/with nationalism.  

I completed my PhD in Geography at the University of Aberdeen after undergraduate Geography (BSc. Hons) and Masters by Research in Human Geography (MSc. R) degrees from The University of Edinburgh. During and after my PhD I was a Teaching Fellow in Geography & Environment at the University of Aberdeen, before moving to the interdisciplinary Institute of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Aberdeen as a Research Fellow and latterly as a Lecturer. In 2024 I took a career break to travel with my family.  

Views of Manhattan and Hong Kong (Authors own 2018 & 2019)

Rural Scotland, East Lothian (Authors own, taken during fieldwork in 2016/2017)

I am working on three new projects at the University of Glasgow with Professor Petra Meier alongside my own wider research. 

1. PHI-UK Policy Modelling for Health (Health Mod) (£7.5 million)
2. GALLANT - Glasgow as a Living Lab Accelerating Novel Transformation (£10.3 million)
3. Glasgow Changing Futures 

Research in practice 

Healthcare workforce:  

I delivered a Scottish Government funded Chief Scientist Office grant focussed on understanding the experiences, motivations and job preferences of generalist doctors in Scotland, particularly with regard to working in rural and remote areas. An overview of this work can be found here, with further research papers in The Geographical Journal, Future Healthcare Journal, Journal of Rural Studies & the British Journal of General Practice alongside multiple conference papers, invited presentations and dissemination activities with policy makers and practitioners. 

Building on this work I was a co-investigator and delivered a National Institute of Health and Social Care (NIHR) Grant worth £226,909.39 to explore community led initiatives to improve recruitment and retention of health professionals in remote and rural areas of the UK. Work from this was published in the Journal of Health Services Research & Policy.   

Health Inequalities:  

More broadly and expanding on the experience of health related research I won two further NHS Grampian Endowment Grants. One, as Principle Investigator that explored the experiences, differences and changes to medical care for people living in remote and rural areas of Scotland (£11,957). The associated research paper was published in Health and Place, and the research presentation was awarded the Conference Delegates’ Prize at the 2022 NHS Grampian R&D Conference. Second, as a co-investigator in a project looking to understand digital health inequalities in NHS Grampian by exploring digital exclusion and identifying solutions to address it in rural and urban communities (£11,954.95). 

I am a co-investigator on a University of Aberdeen based project funded by the Chief Scientist Office BRUCES: Building Rural-Urban healthCare Equity for Scotland (BRUCES) – a multi-methods research programme in cancer, musculoskeletal health and frailty. (£996,081). Through this project I am also an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen (2025-date).  

Contemporary Approaches to Space and Place: 

Building on my doctoral thesis I considered the experience of rural living, as well as contemporary approaches to rural research particularly drawing on non-representational theories. This expertise was recognised elsewhere in invitations to author encyclopaedia entries on non-representational theories (co-authored with Amy C. Barron, University of Manchester, UK), alongside invitations to contirbute three book chapters drawing on my expertise in rural studies that engages with contemporary approaches to rural gerontology (with Gavin Andrews, McMaster, Canada), the importance of older people’s contributions and civic engagement in Scotland (with Lorna Philip, Claire Wallace and Kryzs Adamczyk, all Aberdeen, UK) and one considering the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic to current rural issues in the UK, and beyond (with Lorna Philip, Aberdeen, UK). This work on COVID-19 and rural places has also been published in Geography Directions, part of the Royal Geographical Society with Institute of British Geographers. 

 [Rural Vermont, taken during a fieldtrip at the 2019 Rural Quadrennial Conference, Vermont, USA)

Peer-Review

My reserach expertise has been recognised in invitations to review for the following publications: Environment and Planning A, Social Science & Medicine, British Journal of General Practice, BMC Health Services Research, Health & Place, Journal of Health Services Research & Policy, Ethnography, Political Geography, Geopolitics, Space Policy, Progress in Human Geography, Population, Space and Place, Geoforum, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, The Geographical Journal, GeoJournal, Journal of Rural Studies, Sociologia Ruralis, Science as Culture, the professional publication Oxford Bibliographies, for the National Institute of Health and Care Research and British Academy Grants Awards, and for Routledge.

Prior publications

Prizes, awards & distinctions

• 2023: Nomination (University of Aberdeen Excellence Award: Interdisciplinary Reserach)
• 2022: NHS Grampian R&D Conference Delegates’ Prize Winner, with the presentation ‘Remote and Rural healthcare: pilot study to investigate experiences, differences and changes to medical care for people living in remote and rural areas of Scotland. (NHS Grampian)
• 2017: Best Student Paper - with the paper titled ‘Affective Lives of Rural Ageing’. (European Society for Rural Sociology)
• 2017: Student Paper Competition Winner – ‘More-than-Representational Knowledges of Rural Ageing’ Presentation delivered as part of the 'New Voices in Rural Geography' session at the AAG Annual Conference (April 2017), Boston, USA. (American Association of Geographers (AAG) Rural Geography Specialty Group (RGSG))

Professional & learned societies

• 2020 - date: Treasurer, RGS-IBG Rural Geography Research Group
• 2018 - 2020: Ordinary Member, RGS-IBG Rural Geography Research Group
• 2016 - 2018: Postgraduate Representative, RGS-IBG Rural Geography Research Group
• 2019 - date: Fellow, Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers
• 2015 - 2019: Associate Fellow, Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers
• 2016 - 2020: Member, American Association of Geographers

Selected international presentations

• 2023: ‘Valuing Place in Choosing to Move to and Stay in Rural Practice: recent research and exploring interventions’ Presentation to the National Centre for Remote and Rural Health and Social Care Scotland and Norway Symposium (Aberdeen)
• 2023: ‘Moving, staying and leaving: staffing remote and rural healthcare’ Presentation at the National Centre for Remote and Rural Medicine Conference (Cumbria)
• 2022: ‘Remote and rural healthcare: pilot study to investigate experiences, differences and changes to medical care for people living in remote and rural areas’ Presentation to NHS Grampian R&D Conference. [Delegates’ Prize] (Aberdeen)
• 2021: ‘Posthumanist geography and rural ageing'- Invited speaker for panel as part of the Aging Otherwise series at Concordia University and by Trent's Centre for Aging & Society organised by Prof Stephen Katz (Trent University) (Canada [online])

Supplementary

• Conference Contributions ‘'Come and Work Here!' Community initiatives to recruit and retain healthcare staff in remote and rural areas’ Presentation with Louise Locock as part of the Workforce Theme at the 2023 Health Services Research UK Conference, Birmingham, UK (June, 2023) '‘From 'recruitment' and 'retention' to 'moving' and 'staying': Exploring doctors’ decisions to work in remote and rural locations’ Presentation as part of the NHS Highland RD&I Annual Conference (Nov, 2022) ‘Recruitment and retention of doctors in rural Scotland’ Poster presentation as part of the NHS Highland RD&I Annual Conference (Nov, 2022) ‘Rural migration during the COVID-19 pandemic: moving and staying?’ Paper presented with Keith Halfacree (Swansea University) as part of the ‘People moving to the countryside: resurgent again in COVID-19 times… but are they staying?’ session, sponsored by the Rural Geography Research Group, at the RGS-IBG Annual Conference (September 2022), Newcastle/Online ‘The role of volunteering among older people in rural Scotland’. Paper presented As part of the ESRS 2022 Satellite Event @Scotland Transitioning Rural Futures with Lorna Philip, Krzys Adamczyk, and Claire Wallace (University of Aberdeen). (June, 2022), Perthshire ‘Recruitment and retention of doctors in rural Scotland’ Poster presentation as part of the Rethinking Remote Conference (April, 2022), Aviemore, UK ‘Non-representational geographies: contemporary approaches, methods and practices’ – Paper presented with Amy C. Barron (The University of Manchester) as part of ‘Non-representational geographies: approaches, methods and practices’ session, sponsored by the History and Philosophy of Geography Research Group, at the RGS-IBG Annual Conference (September 2021), London/Online ‘Enhancing recruitment and retention of rural doctors in Scotland’ – Paper presented as part of the Health Services Research UK Conference (July 2021), Online ‘Relational Ruralities: Exploring geo-historicity through the lives of older people’ - Paper contribution as part of the Trans-Atlantic Rural Research Network (TARRN) Annual Meeting (April, 2019), Aberdeen ‘Peer Review Presentations’ – I contributed two peer review presentations as part of the papers workshop elements of the Trans-Atlantic Rural Research Network (TARRN) Annual Meeting (April, 2019), Aberdeen 'Introducing time, temporality and change in non-representational geographies and Beyond' - co-presentation with Amy C. Barron (The University of Manchester) presented as part of 'Temporality and Change: Non-representational Geographies and Beyond' session, sponsored by the History and Philosophy of Geography Research Group, at the RGS-IBG Annual Conference (August 2018), Cardiff 'Geographies of Outer Space' - Co-submission with Oliver Dunnett (Queen’s University Belfast), presented at ‘Towards an Anthropology of Outer Space: Orientating Cosmological Futures’ Conference (September 2017), London. 'Introducing the expanded community of non-representational geographers and geographies' - Presentation delivered as part of the ‘Non-representational geographies: practices, pedagogies and writing’ session, sponsored by the Social & Cultural Geography Research Group and History and Philosophy of Geography Research Group, at the RGS-IBG Annual Conference (September 2017), London. ‘Exploring the rural in rural ageing: affective and embodied contours of older people's lives’ - Presentation as part of the 'Ageing rural communities: experiences and consequences of uneven demographic processes' session at the 27th ESRS Congress (July 2017), Kraków, Poland. 'More-than-representational knowledges of rural ageing' - Presentation delivered as part of the 'New Voices in Rural Geography' session at the AAG Annual Conference (April 2017), Boston, USA: Winner of the 2017 Rural Geography Specialty Group Student Paper Competition. 'Cold War Geographies of Outer Space: Iconography, Nationalism and Geopolitical Imaginaries of the Space Shuttle Mission Patches' - Presentation delivered as part of the 'Cold War Geographies' Symposium (January 2017), at The Eccles Centre for American Studies, The British Library, London. 'Rural Ageing: Encounters, Community, and Idyll' - Presentation delivered at the James Hutton Institute Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences Group Seminar (June 2016), Aberdeen. 'Rural Ageing: Encounters, Community, and Idyll' - Poster delivered at the Annual School of Geosciences Postgraduate Conference (June 2016), University of Aberdeen. 'Symposium Introductory Presentation' - delivered with Hayley French as part of the 1st Granite Symposium- 'Engaging the intersections of Humanity and Technology' (April 2016). 'More-than-representational knowledges of the rural' - Presentation delivered as part of the 3rd Urban and Regional Planning Conference: Meanings of the Rural Theme 1- Social Meanings and representations of the Rural (September 2015), at the University of Aveiro, Portugal. 'Understanding the discourses that surround older people in rural communities' - Presentation delivered as part of the 'New and Emerging Rural Researchers' session at the RGS-IBG Annual Conference (September 2015), at the University of Exeter. 'The everyday geopolitics of Space Shuttle mission patches' - Presentation delivered as part of the 'Domesticating Geopolitics' session at the RGS-IBG Annual Conference (September 2015), at the University of Exeter. 'Using quantitative methods to understand the assets and burdens of older people to society: the wellbeing implications' - Presentation delivered as part of Working Group 17: 'Promoting and sustaining rural wellbeing in a neoliberal world: Methods, case studies and critiques' at the ESRS Congress (August 2015), Aberdeen. 'Assets or Burdens: Understanding the Discourses that Surround Older People in Rural Communities' - Poster delivered at The James Hutton Institute Annual Postgraduate Student Event (March 2015), at the James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen. 'Everyday geographies of the North Edinburgh, Leith Waterfront Redevelopment' - Presentation given at the Edinburgh Geosciences Postgraduate Research Conference (March 2014), at the University of Edinburgh. Conference session and working group organisation ‘People moving to the countryside: resurgent again in COVID-19 times… but are they staying?’ - Co-Session Convenor & Session Chair with Keith Halfacree (Swansea), sponsored by the Rural Geography Research Group, at the RGS-IBG Annual Conference (September 2022), Newcastle/Online. 'Temporality and Change: Non-Representational Geographies and Beyond' - Co-session convenor with Amy C. Barron (The University of Manchester). Sponsored by the History and Philosophy of Geography Research Group at the RGS-IBG Annual Conference (August 2018), Cardiff. 'New and Emerging Rural Researchers' - Co-Session Convenor with Fidel Budy (Aberystwyth), sponsored by the Rural Geography Research Group at the RGS-IBG Annual Conference (September 2018), Cardiff. ‘Ageing in the rural north' – Co-Session convenor with Mai Camilla Munkejord (Uni Research Rokkan Centre & Arctic University of Norway) & Mags Currie (The James Hutton Institute), at the 5th Nordic Ruralities Conference (May 2018), Vingsted, Denmark 'Non-representational geographies: practices, pedagogies and writing' - Session convenor, sponsored by the Social & Cultural Geography Research Group and History and Philosophy of Geography Research Group, at the RGS-IBG Annual Conference (September 2017), London. 'New and Emerging Rural Researchers' - Co-Session Convenor with Hannah Brooking (Leicester), sponsored by the Rural Geography Research Group at the RGS-IBG Annual Conference (September 2017), London. ‘Ageing rural communities: experiences and consequences of uneven demographic processes’ - Co-Working Group Convenor with Lorna Philip and Mags Currie at the 27th ESRS Congress (July 2017), Kraków, Poland. 'Exploring the emotional geographies of ageing’ - Session convenor at the 6th International Emotional Geographies Conference (June 2017), Long Beach, California, USA. 'Geographies of Outer Space' - Co-Session Convenor & Session Chair with Oliver Dunnett (Queen's University Belfast), sponsored by the Social & Cultural Geography Research Group and the Historical Geography Research Group, at the RGS-IBG Annual Conference (September 2016), London. 'Everyday Ruralities: Nexus of Lives Lived' - Co-Session Convenor & Session Chair with Keith Halfacree (Swansea), sponsored by the Rural Geography Research Group, at the RGS-IBG Annual Conference (September 2016), London.