My academic expertise sits at the intersection of Applied Theatre, migration studies and ethics, with a particular focus on the UK asylum system as a lived, political and performative space. I examine how theatre practices engage people with lived experience of displacement not simply as participants, but as knowledge-holders whose narratives challenge dominant state and media framings of asylum. A central strand of my work develops trauma-informed and situated ethical frameworks as facilitators, foregrounding care, consent, power and teh socio-political conditiosn that shape storytelling. I am particularly conserened with ho narrative, embodiment and performance can both reporduce and resist institutional violence and how creative processes can become sites of agency and relationality rather than extraction. 

I joined he University of th West of Scotland in 2022, bringing with me over a decate of professional experience in theatre-making and facilitation. I completed my PhD at the University of Edinburgh Law School in 2025, where my thesis, 'Beyond Testimony: Rethinking Narrative, Agency and Trauma-Informed Practices in the UK Asylum Process through the lens of Applied Theatre' developed my intedisciplinary approach to performance, ethics and migration. Prior to this, I completed an MSc in Theatre and Performance at the University of Edinburh and an undegradate degree in Drama at Kingston University. Alongside my academic career, I have worked for more than ten years as a theatre dirctor and drama facilitator: as a director, I toured productions across the UK and Europe, and as a facilitator, I have collaborated with diverse communities in the UK and Greece, including young people in care, asylum seekers, young carers, and people who experienced homelessness. This combination of professional practice and scholarship continues to shape my research, teaching and ethical commitments. 

My current research builds directly on my PhD and continues to explore the intersections of Applied Theatre, migration and ethics in practice-based contexts. As an outcome of my doctoral work, I am collaborating with the volunteer-led refugee charity Refuweegee in Glasgow to develop practices that cultivate what I think of as 'gentel spaces during violent times', creative environments hat prioratise care, relationality and agency for people navigating the asylum system. Alongside this practice-based research, I am interested in work that interogates the idea of home, questioning what home actually means in lived, ralational, embodied terms and how this contrasts wwith the rigid, bureaucratic empasis on 'country of origin' within the asylum system. 

My current teaching includes a range of modules in both Applied Theatre and performance studies, combining practical exploration with critical inquiry. In my Applied Theatre teaching, students engage with both theory and hands-on practice, often working in collaboration with local communities. These modules support students in developing their own creative practices while building a strong awareness of ethics, care and positionality, encouraging critical reflection on power, responsibility and the social contexts of performance. I also teach modules focused on theatre aesthetics and performance, where studens explore modern and postmodern theories of performance and consider how these ideas shape artisitc form, spectatorship and critical analysis.