Fiona has developed a national and international reputation for research in Inclusive Education, Autism and visual research methodologies and her research focuses on issues of Social Justice with a view to impacting upon the lives of marginalised learners. As such, Fiona’s research spans compulsory and Higher Education and she has been an invited tutor for PhD summer schools at the University of Trondheim and the University of Hamburg.

Fiona was the Lead EU Academic in a European Tempus IV project (ASPIRE) from 2012-2015, which involved nine other partners in Germany; Ireland; Georgia; Slovakia and Armenia and is currently involved in an Erasmus+ funded project in Vietnam and Laos. She led an Evaluation of the Student Central Programme at Maynooth University (2016-2017), and a RITA funded project on autism (2013-2018). 

Fiona is the joint Editor of the British Journal of Special Education, a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Fellow of the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce).

Fiona currently leads the Masters by Research at Edge Hill University and supervises post-graduate research students in the fields of: Inclusive Education; Social Justice; Autism; and Visual Methodologies. 

Fiona is currently involved in a photo-elicitation research project examining perspectives on inclusion and exclusion. Data from this project has been exhibited at TATE Liverpool and is now being used with schools and Local Authorities across England.