My research focuses on early modern literature (especially drama), Shakespeare, Renaissance theatre, and childhood studies. 

My research focuses on the intersections between early modern children and literary cultures.  I have received fellowships from the Leverhulme Trust, Australian Research Council, the Irish Research Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK), the Folger Shakespeare Library (USA) and the Huntington Library (USA) to pursue my work on this topic.  I have written two books, Performing Childhood in the Early Modern Theatre (2009) and Reading Children in Early Modern Culture (2018), which offer new understanding of early modern childhood through an analysis of the children’s playing companies and the child as reader.  Findings of this research have also been published in Shakespeare Bulletin (2020), Renaissance Drama (2016), Ben Jonson Journal (2008), Literature Compass (2010), The New Companion to Renaissance Literature and Culture (ed. Michael Hattaway, 2010) and The Child in British Literature (ed. Adrienne Gavin 2012).  A further essay, co-written with Prof. Kate Chedgzoy (NCL), is forthcoming in The Cambridge History of Children's Literature (2025).  You can hear more about our work on early modern children's literature by listening to the June 2021 episode of the Society for the History of Children and Youth podcast.  

I am currently working on a Leverhulme Trust-funded project on writing by early modern girls, which constructs a corpus of girls' writing between 1544 and 1704 and will produce the first book-length study of this genre.  Work from this project also forms the basis of an essay on girls' writing during war.  Building on this and an event on Peacebuilding, the Arts and the Participation of Children and Young People, which I co-organised with Prof. Fiona Magowan as part of the 2024 Belfast Children's Festival, I am developing a research network on Arts and Peacebuilding that will be hosted by QUB's Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice.

I am taking forward my work on girls and textual cultures through a collaborative project with Prof. Jennifer Duggan (University South Eastern Norway) and Asst. Prof. Lois Burke (Tilburg University) on girls’ and young women’s participatory cultures across history.  We have co-curated an online exhibition on Girls Transforming Texts for the Girl Museum and the manuscript for our edited collection - Girls’ and Young Women’s Participatory Cultures Across History: Textual Imitation, Adaptation, Transformation - is currently in preparation.

I also have a longstanding interest in Shakespeare and performance.  I have written essays on 1 Henry IV (2011) and ‘Shakespeare and the Renaissance Stage’ in The Edinburgh Companion to Shakespeare and the Arts, ed. Mark Burnett, Adrian Streete and Ramona Wray (2012).  Recent work on Shakespeare and riot has been published in a special issue of Shakespeare (2018, co-edited with Dr Kate Flaherty ANU), Atrocity and Early Modern Drama (2025, ed. Sarah Johnson and Georgina Lucas), Shakespeare's Audiences (2021, ed. Peter Kirwan and Matteo Pangallo) and Australian Studies (2012).

I teach on the following modules:

ENG1010 Adventures in Shakespeare

ENG2050 Shakespeare & Co.

ENG3181 Renaissance Performance, Gender, Space

ENG7024 Shakespearean Childhoods

ENG7163 Literary Research Methods

AEL2001 Gender, Culture and Representation

I am currently AEL Director of Graduate Researcg.

I am Co-Lead of the 'Arts and Peacebuilding' Research Priority and Fellow of the Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice.