I am Associate Professor and Course Leader for MA Jewellery & Metalwork. My current role involves supervising post-graduate and PhD students alongside undertaking research and practice. I have worked in higher education since 1993 at several universities across the UK. As a senior researcher I engage in design, making, writing and curating. A key element of creative research explores personal and social rituals through wearable artefacts and domestic objects and the reading of these in the context of contemporary visual culture.

I am Associate Professor and after 8 years as programme leader for MA Design became Course Leader for MA Jewellery & Metalwork. I have worked in higher education since 1993 at several universities across the UK and in my current role supervise post-graduate and PhD students alongside undertaking research and practice. I studied at the RCA in London graduating in 1991 with a Master of Arts in Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork and Jewellery. I established a creative design studio in London and in 1995 relocated to Sheffield where I currently live and work.

As a senior researcher I engage in design, making, writing and curating. A key element of my creative research explores personal and social rituals through wearable artefacts and domestic objects and the reading of these in the context of contemporary visual culture. Research is primarily practice-led and through the production of artefacts I explore the relationship between jewellery and objects to body, place, context and their meaning. Sensory experience through the interaction of these objects challenges the wearer or users emotive, physical and visual perceptions.

Emotional attachments and the hand-crafted object also relate to material sustainability, consumption, and audience engagement. Recent projects investigate how co-creative Participatory Research (PAR) methods can empower and create meaningful agency. Since 2014 I have worked on projects funded by the EPSRC and AHRC and led a Research England’s Global Challenge Research Funded project. Through 'Create & Connect' in East Africa and 'Making Links' in Indonesia I undertook collaborative research with artisan craft makers, academics and fair-trade organisations to enable social and economic empowerment. Outcomes from these have been disseminated internationally through exhibitions, international trade fairs, conference presentations, journal papers and guest lectures.

I have exhibited nationally and internationally and was in the 2000 shortlist for the Jerwood Applied Arts prize for Jewellery. My wearable artefacts and objects have been purchased for several collections including the Crafts Council, The Goldsmiths’ Company, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, The National Museums of Scotland, and the Sheffield Assay Office. In 2019 I was invited to curate the inaugural exhibition for the opening of the BR gallery at the Intangible Cultural Heritage Center for Metalwork in Yunnan, China.

I am passionate about education, widening participation in the creative arts and supporting new designer/ makers and their enterprises. I have done this by contributing to many external organisations during my professional life. I was on the first executive committee for the Association for Contemporary Jewellery (ACJ), was a founding member of Sheffield’s Galvanize Festival, a mentor for the starter studio for Silversmithing & jewellery at Yorkshire Artspace and a Trustee of Museums Sheffield for 7 years. My contribution to the subject discipline has been recognized through the awarding of Freedom of the Goldsmiths’ Company, the City of London (2006) and the Company of Cutlers’ in Hallamshire (2007).