Whilst working towards my PhD in Psychology, I taught for five years as a Sessional Lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University and also worked as a Research Assistant in Psychology at Edge Hill University for 18 months. I completed my PhD in 2010. I then worked as an Associate Tutor in Psychology at Edge Hill University, before joining the research team in the Faculty of Education, also at Edge Hill University, in 2013. After seven years, I left my role of Senior Research Fellow to return to the Department of Psychology as Senior Lecturer in 2020. I became Deputy Programme Leader for the Specialist Pathways in Psychology in 2022.

Alongside my employed positions, I became a Chartered Psychologist in 2014 and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society in 2017. I am Associate Editor of the British Journal of Educational Psychology and serve on the editorial boards of Educational Psychology: An International Journal of Experimental Educational Psychology and Social Psychology of Education: An International Journal. I have sat on the British Psychological Society Psychology of Education Section committee since 2015 and am currently the Section Treasurer (in a shared role). I regularly examine PhDs and peer review for several international journals.

My research interests focus on the psychology of education, particularly student engagement and motivation and the variables that affect and are affected by these, such as test anxiety, achievement emotions, perceptions of control and value, student perceptions of teacher messages, academic self-concept, wellbeing at school and in general, and student-teacher relationships.

The modules I currently teach on are:

EDP3102: Student Motivation and Engagement (Module Leader)

EDP1001: Introduction to Educational Psychology (Semester 2 Module Leader)

EDP2004: The Psychology of Teaching, Learning and Instruction

PSY2112: Developmental Psychology

PSY1117: Real World Psychology

PSY3135: Psychology Undergraduate Dissertation

PSY4314: Psychology Masters (Conversion) Dissertation

Supervision: PhD Psychology