People

Living and working in Greece during the financial crisis for many years, I experienced food insecurity firsthand. These experiences showed me how external shocks can impact people’s ability to maintain healthy diets, even when they’re working hard to make ends meet. This personal insight drove my passion for building resilient food systems and understanding how unexpected crises – whether financial, COVID-19, or Brexit – affect communities’ access to nutritious food, which in turn can significantly impact their physical and mental health.

My unconventional journey through 12 years of military leadership and 4 years in operations at Amazon has shaped my ability to solve complex problems. In the military, I learned the critical importance of robust supply chains and efficient resource distribution, as well as the importance of efficient stakeholder management. At Amazon, I developed my skills in operational excellence and large-scale logistics management. This diverse 16-year career has enhanced my interdisciplinary approach to complex problem-solving and stakeholder engagement.

My academic foundation includes a BSc in Geography and MSc in Operations, Project and Supply Chain Management, complemented by published research in health inequalities and supply chain management. This interdisciplinary background has equipped me to address complex food system challenges through both theoretical and practical lenses, utilising GIS, geographical analysis and spatial modelling to solve real-world problems.

Currently, my project I am working on is investigating how supply chain disruptions in fruit and vegetable distribution affect diet quality among disadvantaged populations. My research combines quantitative analysis of supply chain networks and diet modelling with stakeholder engagement in Southampton, serving as a detailed case study. Using spatial data science, network optimisations, simulations, forecasting, consumer purchasing behaviour analysis and collaborative approaches with the local city council and local businesses, I will work to identify strategies that enhance dietary resilience through improved supply chain design.

What drives me is the belief that everyone deserves access to healthy food, regardless of circumstances. Through evidence-based approaches and innovative solutions, I aim to create sustainable changes in food systems that benefit vulnerable communities. With my experience bridging theory and implementation, I’m always eager to collaborate with others who share this vision of creating more equitable and resilient food systems. Please feel free to get in touch if you want to connect and discuss future research ideas or potential collaborations in addressing food system challenges.

With a grounding in art and anthropology, my interdisciplinary practice is shaped by my upbringing in Birmingham, a UK city celebrated for its diversity, with over 180 nationalities, and my experiences living across Europe and China. Blending photography, sculpture, and curation with conversation and participatory exchange, I explore the tools and rituals of belonging and belief that transcend political boundaries. I am the author of five books, including Under Gods (Dewi Lewis Publishing, 2010) and Sacred Shanghai (Washington University Press,2019).

My doctoral research expands on the methodology and critical inquiries emerging from The SIM Project, which I founded in 2017 and has since toured across eight countries. The evolving collection of unique wearable artefacts, crafted during intimate workshops, materialise and transform personal digital archives into tangible visual narratives of mobility. By amplifying the voices of people with lived experiences of forced migration, the project seeks to challenge hostile narratives around migration and democratise storytelling and archiving practices. Recognised for its impact, the project was selected by London Design Festival 2024 and exhibited at V&A, London. 

I am the inaugural Honorary Artist at Migration Mobilities Bristol and has undertaken residencies at institutions including King’s College London (Digital Humanities), the University of Birmingham (Theology and Philosophy), the Migration Research Centre at University College London, SOAS University (South Asia Institute), and the University of Texas at Austin (Art History). Between 2013 to 2017, I was a visiting scholar at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

A curiosity about the planet we live on and a fascination with the drama and spectacle of natural hazards led me to study for a BSc in Geology at Durham University. It was throughout this course that I came to realise it was society’s interactions with these phenomena that was my real area of interest. To explore this further, I stayed on at Durham to complete an MSc in Risk. This course explored conceptualisations of risk and resilience in various contexts including natural hazards, climate change and wider society, and gave me my first experience with interdisciplinary study. I was particularly captivated by the gendered discourse of these concepts and centred my dissertation on the global absence of gender disaggregated disaster data.

After graduating I took a job as a risk manager in the construction sector, working on major programmes in London and Athens. I then took a year out to travel around New Zealand and train as a ski instructor. It was whilst travelling that I recognised my desire to return to academia to continue exploring resilience to natural hazards. This drove my decision to apply to the Programme for Interdisciplinary Resilience Studies. I was particularly keen to be a part of this programme because its approach to resilience studies is both timely and refreshing. Through fostering adaptability, creativity and divergent thinking this programme provides a research framework that inspires optimism for tackling grand societal challenges.

My doctoral research explores women’s resilience to extreme heat in the UK. In line with climate projections, heatwaves in the UK are becoming more frequent and severe as global mean temperatures rise. The drive to create resilient communities able to cope with and thrive through extreme heat events is hindered by disagreement over the objective of resilience and a lack of empirical evidence of resilience in practice. While there is a growing body of research on the impact of heatwaves on society, there remains a significant gap in the literature concerning women’s experiences – particularly within the UK context.  My project will contribute to these research gaps by analysing women’s lived experience of resilience to heatwaves in the UK, drawing from diverse forms of literature to uncover the memories, narratives and stories that exist in relation to past, present and future resilience.