My academic background is in Philosophy of Education. I am interested in how injustice and inequality are reproduced and sustained by forms of ignorance, testimonial and hermeneutical injustices, lack of access to important capitals such as linguistic capital, and by the ways in which ordinary vices are often overlooked as important sources of injustice: cruelty, misogyny, hypocrisy, and so on.

My key areas of interest include:

• SEN/Inclusion
• Epistemic Injustice/Trust
• Epistemology of Ignorance/Deceit
• The Capability Approach (Nussbaum)
• Education Policy
• Philosophy of Emotions
• Feminism and Gender (philosophical liberalism)
• Literacy/Linguistic Capital

I am primarily influenced by liberal feminist philosophers who have done much to raise awareness of how women as persons, as knowers, and as carers, have been overlooked in the philosophical (and virtually every other) tradition; and helped us think differently about how other classically marginalised groups, such as those with impairments and disabilities, fare under conditions of micro and macro inequalities and injustices.

Concepts that I enjoy working with include: autonomy and personhood; testimonial and hermeneutical injustices; linguistic capital (following Bourdieu and Passeron); inequality and injustice; stereotyping and prejudice; and emotions, the latter because they are phenomenally complex but often reduced to simple, merely excited states of mind which lack thought or rationality (just ask any feminist or marginalised person why are angry about injustice: their anger won't lack thought - or reason!).

In the Masters programme on SEN/Inclusion I ask students to think differently about commonplace assumptions about what it means to include people with disabilities or impairments, from the working class or marginalised sexualities. So: what does it mean to label somebody as something? What happens when we give greater or less credibility to a person simply because of her or his status, colour, class or sex? And where are we left ethically if we deliberately will ignorance of injustice? In pursuit of these kinds of questions, I like students to release their imaginations on old and stubborn problems in new ways.

Director Masters Progamme SEN/Inclusion, 2015 to date

Deconstructing Special Needs Education and Inclusion

Epistemic Injustice

Social Justice in SNE: A Capabilities Approach

Integrated PhD

Theories, Frameworks and Concepts

Children's Rights MSc (until 2018)

Children's Right Pedagogy

Childhood and Youth Research in Practice

EdD (until 2021)

Special Needs Education and Inclusion: A Capability Approach

PGCE: Educational and Professional Studies (until 2019)

Secondary Education

Before entering academia in 2013, I was Head of Social Subjects in a number of secondary schools in Scotland specialising in Geography and Modern Studies, a uniquely Scottish subject focused on Politics, Sociology, International Relations and Citizenship Studies.

GTC (Scotland) registered: Geography and Modern Studies

Nominated for Queen's University Delivering Excellence Awards, 2022

Shortlisted for Queen's University Delivering Excellence Award, 2021

Shortlisted for Queen's University Teaching Excellence Awards, 2021

Nominated for Queen's University 'Delivering Excellence' Award, 2020

Nominated for Queen's University 'Delivering Excellence' Award, 2019

Winner and first recipient of the 'ICARE' award in memory of the late Vice-Chanellor, PG Johnstone, Staff Excellence Awards, 2018

Nominated for Queen's University 'Delivering Excellence' Award, 2017

Nominated for Queen's University 'Oustanding Leadership' Award, 2017

Winner Student's Union 'Best Feedback' Award, 2017

Nominated for Gradudate School 'Supervision Excellence Award', 2017

Shortlisted for Students' Union 'Most Inspiring Teacher', 2017

Nominated for Queen's University 'Delivering Excellence' Award, 2016

Director of Postgraduate Research, SSESW (2023 to date)

CDRG Lead-Education and Research Group Lead for Education (2018 to 2022)

Vice Chair School Research Ethics Committee (SSESW)(2018 to 2022)

PGCE Director (2018)

Member of the Centre for Children's Rights

Member of the Centre for Inclusion, Transformation and Equity

AERA Cooperative Learning SIG Awards Chair (2022 to date)

Associate Member of the Center for Evidence and Social lnnovation (CESI until 2021)

Journal Editorships and Board Membership

Editor, British Educational Research (BERJ)

Associate Editor, International Journal of Educational Research (Open) (iJEDRO)

Associate Editor, International Journal of Educational Reseearch (IJER)

Associate Editor, European Journal of Special Needs Education (EJSNE. From July 2024)

Board Member, Postdigital Science and Education (PDSE)

Board Member, Teaching in Higher Education (TiHE)