I came to UWS in January 2021 from Sheffield Hallam University where I worked, in my first full time academic position, as a Senior Lecturer in Performance from 2016.

Prior to my career in Higher Education I spent nearly a decade combining professional theatre directing and applied theatre practice alongside practice-as-research and higher education teaching (please see 'Activities' section for a full list of work). During this period I worked as the Associate Director, Stephen Joseph Theatre (2013-2016), Community, Education and Literary Director, Orange Tree Theatre (2009-2013) as well as a variety of roles at Shakespeare's Globe, Almeida Theatre, freelance theatre direction and the running of DogAteCake, a company devoted to post-modern interpretations of Victorian Farce. Whilst working as a theatre professional, I also taught and made work at East 15 Drama School, Hull University, St Mary's University, Twickenham and JASSPA Drama group.

In 2016 I completed a practice based PhD at Hull University in collaboration with Stephen Joseph Theatre and Orange Tree Theatre which explored the reception of in-the-round Shakespeare performance by secondary and primary school aged children in London and Yorkshire. I trained at Exeter University (MA Staging Shakespeare) and Hull University (BA Drama) and as a junior theatre maker at Orange Tree Theatre and Shakespeare's Globe.

Outside of Performance, I am the co-editor of The Gentleman Ultra website which explores Italian football, culture and history. I have written on this subject for The Guardian and I am the co-founder and co-host of In The Shadow Of Vesuvio Podcast with Michele Borelli, resident of Naples.

I am an academic and practitioner specialising in Theatre Making, Theatre-in-the-Round, Early Modern Drama and Digital Pedagogy, Applied Theatre, Actor Training, Farce and Theatre Comedy, Theatre and Phenomenology and Cross Media Collaboration. I am an advocate for, and embed into my teaching, the methods and principles of practice-as-research and like to bring together my academic training with my professional experience as a director and applied theatre practitioner.

My research and teaching in relation to de-centred, inter-cultural and digital Shakespeare pedagogies has resulted in the creation of De-Centred Shakespeares Network in partnership with global majority theatre companies and scholars around the world. My interest in the Shakespeare Society of Southern Africa's #lockdownShakespeare project has been developed into research and I am a Research Associate of Tsikinya-Chaka Research Centre (Wits University, South Africa). Further to this, I was the guest editor of a themed issue (25:1) of the Journal for Research in Drama Education, titled Teaching Shakespeare: Digital Processes.

In my role as Performance Director of the independent, Paris-based, international educational, cultural & humanitarian non-profit organization, Yesterday/Today/Tomorrow (YTT), I have created a performance methodology which deploys an updated and unique interpretation of Augusto Boal's Image Theatre technique in order to enable embodied and interactive responses by members of the public to drawings created by refugees. I am currently working with the War Childhood Museum in Sarajevo to co-create Peace Building methodologies out of this YTT Performance Method in relation to Object Based Learning.

Also for YTT: Performances and workshops have taken place in Venice (as part of the 57th Biennale di Venezia), Rome, Paris, Berlin, Sarajevo and Sheffield as well as a variety of secondary schools in South Yorkshire. A twenty minute video documenting this research methodology was part of Bryan McCormack's installation, Yesterday/Today/Tomorrow Traceability is Credibility at the Fondazione Cini for the 47th Biennale di Venezia. Research outputs in relation to this work are both performance based and written.  Since 2019 I have been developing this anti-discriminatory practice with Head of Human Rights at Sheffield Hallam, Dr Sunita Toor's as part of a collaboration with her Justice For Her project. This work brings together the YTT Performance Methodology with police training and prevention in relation to Gender Based Violence in India. Shortly prior to the global lockdown of 2020, I was due to co-deliver training residencies at the Madhya Pradesh Police Academy with Toor and McCormack as well as running performance workshops in secondary schools and as well as the survivors of gender based violence in the Bhopal area.

Finally, my professional background as a theatre director is a driving force behind my research into new writing. In 2023 my introduction to Posh will be published by Methuen Drama and in 2025 Methuen will also published a monograph co-authored by Sophie Bush called The Theatre of Laura Wade. 

I currently teach Practice: Text Based (synthesis of Early Modern performance technique and Stanislavskian actor training), Cross Media Collaboration (digital, site based audio project delivery) New Performance Realisation (4th year, industry led large scale practice module).

I have previously taught modules in Applied Theatre, Theatre Making, Actor Training, Creative Industies Employability, Playwriting and Elizabethan and Jacobean Theatre, Theatre-in-Round as well as dissertation and Practice-as-Research supervision.

I am looking to expand and extend inter-cultural and multi-lingual digital Shakespeare pedagogy and performance research to create a network of theatre makers, teachers and researchers. This hub is particularly focussed on critical conversations between residents of nations with colonial linguistic histories in relation to the English language.

I am interested in using my research profile to platform and investigate contemporary female playwrights and theatre makers from a practice-based perspective - particuarly the work of Laura Wade and the theatre company Utopia.

My on-going role as Performance Director of yesterday/today/tomorrow involves myself seeking collaborations with organisations interested in applying creative anti-discrimination practice.