About

I am a Lecturer in Anthropology of Development at the University of Edinburgh. Prior to this appointment I was a Research Fellow at the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (InSIS), University of Oxford, where I held an ESRC Future Research Leaders fellowship 2017-18. I completed my PhD in anthropology at University College London in 2011. Before joining InSIS I worked as a parliamentary researcher in the UK House of Commons, focusing on health policy among other areas.

My research focuses on environmental knowledge and decision-making in contexts of social and ecological change. I am interested in the interfaces of anthropology and science and technology studies, of natural and social sciences, and of research and policy-making processes. To date my research has explored perceptions of the environment, changing livelihoods, infrastructural development, and the use of scientific predictions for resource and hazard management. I have carried out ethnographic fieldwork and interview-based studies in the UK, Belize and Kenya.

My latest project Envisioning Emergent Environments: Negotiating Science and Resource Management in Rural Communities (funded by the ESRC 2017-18) examines the implications of science-led watershed management interventions for rural residents in Belize. While at Oxford I also worked on the DFID-funded research programme ‘REACH: Improving water security for the poor’, the Oxford Martin Programme on Resource Stewardship (OMPORS), and the NERC-funded project Improving Predictions of Drought for User Decision-Making (IMPETUS).

I am a member of the Royal Anthropological Institute Environment Committee and convenor of the Network for Anthropologies of Forecasting Weather and Climate (AnthFOR).