I came to Sheffield in 2002 to study as an undergraduate, and stayed on to do an MA in International Cinema and a PhD in British social realism. After finishing my PhD in 2009, I took a variety of teaching, research and public engagement roles in the School of English before being appointed Lecturer in Film Studies in September 2012.
My main research area is British social realist cinema, with a particular interest in the functions of space, place and landscape in realist texts. I have also published work on British television drama, the British New Wave and contemporary British cinema.
My work is currently focussed on the film and television writer and novelist Barry Hines, perhaps best known of the novel A Kestrel for a Knave (1968) and the TV play Threads (1984). Together with Professor Sue Vice, I am developing and delivering a number of research and public engagement projects around Hines and working-class film, television and literature more broadly.
I am also undertaking a number of projects on the representation of the North of England in film and television drama, exploring in particular questions of genre, stardom and authorship.