I am a health historian of the 20th and early 21st century. I specialise in the history of ‘(un)healthy’ industries, technologies and marketing, as well as patient(-consumer) narratives, mass media and stigma. My interdisciplinary research intersects the medical humanities with policy, and also cultural, business and communication studies. I have published extensively on tanning culture and maternal mental illness.

I am also the editor for The Gazette - the digital newsletter for the Society for the Social History of Medicine.

Based at the University of Glasgow, I am working on Professors Anna Greenwood, Alex Mold and Heather Wardle’s project, Kicking the Habit: Historicising ‘Addictive’ Sport Sponsorship in Britain, 1965-2025 (Wellcome funded, 2024-30). My strand explores the gambling industry’s sponsorship of sports (football, rugby, cricket and golf). I am currently developing publications on corporate tactics, marketing strategies, and public health interventions related to sports gambling sponsorship. In turn, my research historicises ‘everyday’ consumerism in Britain.

From 2021-24, I was a Research Fellow on Emeritus Professor Hilary Marland’s project The Last Taboo of Motherhood?: Postnatal Mental Disorders in Twentieth-Century Britain (University of Warwick, Wellcome funded). I examined how mothers (and fathers) both narrated and experienced parental mental illness, particularly through television, the radio and the print press testimonies and interviews.

From 2020-21, I undertook an Early Career Fellowship on the Medical Humanities China-UK Exchange Programme (Universities of Strathclyde, Shanghai and Manchester) and an IAS Fellowship (University of Warwick). From 2015-19, funded by Wellcome, I completed my Medical Humanities MA and PhD on tanning technologies, focusing on sunbeds (University of Warwick), and a Secondment Fellowship at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology. As a result of this research, I am a part of NHS Scotland’s ‘Sunbed Safety Group’. We provide guidance and assistance on the proposed legislation.

I am passionate about using research to inform policy more effectively and enjoy making history accessible to the public. I have provided expertise via podcasts, national newspapers (Scotsman), digital press (Refinery29 and I-News), radio (Clyde 1), and also archive, campaign and government groups (NHS Scotland).

In my free time, I love going on long walks and runs (propelled by coffee, chatting or music), as well as reading books and watching films of all sci-fi genres. I also enjoy gaming, especially VR sports, strategy-based RPGs and third-person historical (and/or dystopian) narratives.