Contact
Biography
I am an interdisciplinary researcher, with projects centred in psychology, human geography and criminology. My work focusses on policing and security. I am particularly interested in how policing is perceived to be good or successful, and the decisions which arise this as well as considerations of vulnerability and human rights, and the role of technology in policing systems. I joined the University of Dundee in 2014 as a PhD student in Human Geography, and have continued working here on various research projects whilst continuing my PhD part time.
Research
Since 2021 I have been based in Humanities, as the UK Research assistant for Police Accountability: Towards international standards. This is a cross-disciplinary, international project funded for the UK by the ESRC. Alongside colleagues in France, Germany, Canada and Japan we are employing qualitative and quantative methodologies to develop a framework for the comparison of police complaints mechanisms and establish internationally relevant standards.
Prior to this, for 3.5 years I worked in the UoD Geography department as part of a Nordforsk funded project ‘Eyes Online’. This project explored the accountability and legitimacy of online surveillance by state authorities, in partnership with several other Scottish universities, as well as counterparts in Finland and Norway.
Drawing on findings from the Eyes Online Project. I, alongside Dr Megan O’Neill and Professor Burkhart Shafer, also secured Scottish universities Insight institute (SUII) funding for a series of meetings, workshops exploring Ethics, technology and latterly, the pandemic. This included a unique, expert lead poetic collaboration between police practitioners, civil servants, human rights activists and academics ‘Fastidious Inquiry, Weird compliance: A Corona of Sonnets’.
My ESRC funded PhD is supervised by Dr Jon Mendel here at Dundee, Professor Nick Fyfe (RGU) and Dr Penny Woolnough (Abertay). My project focusses on police perceptions of success in missing persons police work and involved 9 months embedded research practice with two UK Police Forces. The thesis will be submitted in early 2022. Related to this, I also co-authored a report contributing to an HMICS Inspection on Local responses to Missing persons, and more recently have co-authored two blogs for the Royal Geographical society on ‘Missing Persons in the Pandemic’ and the then overlooked ‘Missing Black Lives’.