Funded by the Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness

I am a health researcher interested in sexualities, gender and sexual health and reproductive rights including sexual pleasure. I completed my PhD research about women’s life history experiences of using contraception and managing pregnancy and I’m particularly interested in taking a critical approach to contraceptive choice and the historical legacies of contraceptive policy and practice initiatives. I am primarily a qualitative researcher, experienced in working with women and young people specifically and especially value using visual methods and historical approaches.

I am a sociologist interested in medicine, disability, stigma, reproduction, and technology. My PhD was an qualitative study of prenatal screening for Down's syndrome in two UK hospitals. This research forms the basis of my first book Down's Syndrome Screening and Reproductive Politics: Care, Choice, and Disability in the Prenatal Clinic (2017, see here). I have also carried out research on, among other topics, pregnancy and parenting apps.

​I currently work within the Centre for Health Inequalities Research at Lancaster University and my main research interests are in adolescence, gender, sexualities and sexual health. Prior to coming to the University in 2012, I spent the previous 25 years in a range of community and public health roles specifically in HIV prevention, sexual health, sex education and teenage pregnancy. From 2001 – 2010 I was involved in the development and co-ordination of the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy at local, regional and national levels. I have a particular interest and concern about the discourses underlying current and recent public health policies particularly in the area of sexual and reproductive health. 

I am an anthropologist interested in women’s experiences of reproductive technologies, particularly contraceptives.  I am currently undertaking research on women’s experience of a range of reproductive technologies over the life course using longitudinal qualitative data in the UK.  I also work in applied public health research to better integrate rights-based approaches to contraceptive information and service provision globally.  I have also co-authored, with Katharine Dow, the edited collection on Nature and Ethics Across Geographical, Rhetorical and Human Borders (2018).