Biography

I am a lecturer in criminology at Edinburgh Napier, where I have been working part-time since December 2012. I was on secondment to the Scottish Prison Service for two years until autumn 2018. I am also a Board member for Howard League Scotland. Before beginning at Napier I worked with the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research (University of Glasgow). I studies for my BA (hons) in sociology and social policy at the University of Edinburgh, and received the James Clerke Memorial prize for best social policy dissertation. I continued onto the MSc in Criminology and Criminal Justice, where my dissertation examined the history of rehabilitation in Scottish prisons. My PhD examined the effects of devolution on Scottish criminal justice, drawing on theoretical frameworks from social and political sciences and interviews from criminal justice policy-makers and practitioners.

My research interests are Scottish penal policy and penal change, professionalisation, prison officers, reintegration from prison and participatory engagement within prisons. I have secured grants from ESRC , Carnegie Trust and the Scottish Prison Service to explore a range of issues relating to imprisonment and Scottish public policy.

I teach on range of areas within criminology at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, both on university campus and within prisons. I supervise students on a range of topics but have an interest in prisons and punishment especially. I established the Howard League Scotland Edinburgh Napier Students group. I lead on the Subject Group's involvement in the Criminology Summer School in which our students have the opportunity to travel to a network of American universities to learn about comparative crime and control. I won the student nominated best lecturer in the School of Applied Sciences in 2019.