All my projects are grounded in lived experiences. I first started thinking about politics while pursuing a career as a professional rugby player and my first forays into international relations research explored the intersection of sport and war.
I was fortunate to be taught by inspiring academics throughout my undergraduate degree at the Australian National University (Jim George, Kate Lee Koo and Jeremy Moses to name a few) who introduced me to eyeopening literatures and encouraged me to pursue my own original thinking. Around the same time I met my life partner Camille Serisier, who was graduating from the ANU School of Art and Design and embarking on a career as a professional artist and curator. This pulled me into an exciting and at times all consuming engagement with the creative industries, which has been the impetus for my research on the visual dimensions of popular culture.
I went on to explore these interests through doctoral research at the University of Queensland under the supervision of Roland Blieker. My thesis looked at the role of conspiracy theory during the War on Terror, and I then built on this work through a Postdoctoral Fellowship at University of New South Wales in Canberra under the inspiring guidance of Toni Erskine.
I have been in post at the University of Kent since 2019, lecturing on security, terrorism, global governance, and International Relations theory. In that time my research has expanded to other areas of popular culture and visual politics, and I have particularly enjoyed recent projects on embodiment, the imagination, documentary photography and creative methods.
