My approach to leadership, teaching and research is driven by the belief that creative education can shape equitable and transformative futures. My leadership and research in creative education operate at the intersection of people (students and academics), places (studios, art schools, policies, and corridors), and things (curricula, materials, and dialogues). I am a National Teaching Fellow, co-founder of the Graphic Design Educators’ Network, and Convenor for the Design Research Society.

I am an award-winning graphic design educator with over twenty years of experience teaching higher education in further education colleges and universities. I started as a part-time teacher while working as a book designer. In 2007, I swapped designing ‘things’ for designing ‘learning’ full-time. Since then, I have worked as a Course Leader, Senior Lecturer, and Principal Lecturer in Graphic Design. In 2015, I became the Teaching and Learning Lead for the Department of Art and Design. In 2022, I was conferred as an Associate Professor, and in 2024, I became an Associate Head in the Sheffield Creative Industries Institute.

My approach to teaching and leadership has been to channel my own uneven higher education experiences to shape compelling, compassionate and critical encounters with creative subjects. As an educator, I approached graphic design education and teaching as the act of making things possible and not taking things for granted. I strived to combine care, creativity, and organisational flair to make all students active protagonists in an unfolding excursion from the familiar to the unfamiliar. 

As a researcher and educator, I persistently challenged the normative practices of design education – whether it’s through democratising the crit to give voice and space to students or creating reflexive tools for students to ‘see’ the domains in which they practice. I was awarded a prestigious National Teaching Fellowship in 2022 for my sustained and outstanding impact on student experience and outcomes.  

As a Teaching & Learning Lead, I supported colleagues by combining the requirements of day-to-day policies with playful encounters that examine education through the lens of risk, performance, and realness. 

Inspired by the idea that networks can enable individuals to possess qualities and capacities beyond their individual competence, I co-founded a Subject Association in 2014 – the Graphic Design Educators’ Network (GDEN) – taking a leading role in growing the network to over 500 members. Since 2015, GDEN events and conferences have hosted over 850 attendees from 75 different institutions, representing over 100 courses to advance graphic design education.