About Me
ABOUT ME
academic CV
professional cv
Author, researcher and educator who loves the outdoors as much as I do books.
Trained as a historian, I am a researcher and non-fiction writer with interests in communities, environment, nature, landscape, and the past. Currently, I am writing a book on mountain bothies exploring the history of the buildings and the landscapes they sit in, as well as people’s relationship with environments and places in an era of climate change. I have always loved writing, reading and learning, and delight in an eclectic range of interests, but it’s being in the natural world which has always kept me sane. I grew up in rural Shropshire and was always happiest fishing about in a pond or inspecting an insect.
My interest in people, communities and the stories they tell, however, led me to choose history as my degree and the delight of archives and books has been my professional world as a historian for 15 years. However, this is matched by my love of nature and the outdoors. I am a keen bird watcher, walker, snapper of photographs, and hiker, and research and write about the outside world. As I have travelled all over the world for research conferences and just to explore, I have always loved encountering different places and landscapes.
As well as my experience in research and writing, I am also a highly driven leader, manager and communicator, with extensive skills in strategy, administration, outreach and enterprise. I am also interested in environment, education, sports, social enterprise, and outreach, and helped found the national governing body for the sport of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, a martial art in which I have a black belt. I have also competed internationally in the sport. I’ve devoted much of my life to sharing my knowledge with others, and I have taught many different subjects in different places. It’s always been important to me to communicate my passion and love of learning, and that’s been particularly rewarding when working with people who haven’t always had the opportunity to engage in education.
Whilst I love history and the humanities, it’s how this work speaks to us about the environment and the natural world that I find most interesting. Stories of our landscapes are, after all, also stories of communities and their pasts and futures. I work on projects which combine my skills as a writer, researcher, and educator with my passion for nature. As I interweave my skills as a historian with an interest in the environmental humanities, I am committed to helping tackle the greatest challenges that face our planet: climate change, environmental destruction and ecological crisis.
At the root of this all remains my love for wild places, strange bugs and interesting pasts. My current project on bothying pretty much sums me up: thinking about people and their pasts, communities and climate change, in brooding landscapes with some camping, hiking and bird-watching thrown in.
For writing enquiries please contact my agent at Greene & Heaton, Imogen Morrell
Experience
Senior lecturer in early modern history, Birkbeck college
September 2017 - Present
Director, Roll the SAME
August 2020 - September 2022
Lecturer in early modern history, university of EAST ANGLIA
September 2014 - August 2017
CEo and director, United kingdom Brazilian jiu jitsu association
February 2014 - August 2017
Manager, founder and instructor, Carlson Gracie Oxford BJJ
January 2014 - August 2017
British Academy Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, University of Oxford, History Faculty and Oriel College
January 2012 – September 2014
Teacher of History, Latymer Upper School
Sep 2010 – Dec 2011
Tutor, Explore Learning Ltd
April 2007 – July 2007
costumed interpreter, Past pleasures
April 2007 – July 2007
Researcher at Whitney Group, London
Sep 2006 – March 2007
Voluntary work
Conservation volunteering including 10 days with Biosphere in the Amazon and for the London Wildlife Trust
Part of Green Gym Bicester and helping with a local community project to coppice a small copse
Volunteering for Bookmark Reading, working with school children to read
Free and charitable sports sessions to promote various causes such as women’s involvement in BJJ and promote BJJ in schools to get the sport accepted on the curriculum in west London
Volunteer for Bath Community Connect during COVID-19
Student Housing and Welfare Officer for Balliol College
Education
university of oxford
DPhil in History
Awarded 2011
University of OXFORD
MSt in Historical Research, Distinction
Graduated 2006
UNIVERSITY Of OXFORD
BA (Hons) in Modern History (First)
Graduated 2005
