Before completing a PhD in Women's Studies, I did outreach work, supporting families and young people from various socio-economic backgrounds in the city of Vancouver, Canada. I then worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on projects that examined the negotiation of religious, spiritual and cultural plurality in healthcare at Trinity Western University, and investigated Canadian families' food practices, a project led by scholars at the University of British Columbia and Dalhousie University. Soon after, I worked with colleagues at Durham, Derby and Chester Universities exploring young people's religious identities at English universities.
Subsequently, my research has continued to take an interdisciplinary and feminist approach to investigating religion, spirituality and inequalities in healthcare settings, recently resulting in a co-authored book Prayer as Transgression? The Social Relations of Prayer in Healthcare Settings (McGill-Queen's University Press 2020). I have also been interested in gender and religion and women's changing faith lives. My work on this area has explored women, sexuality and church life, gender and career progression in Theology and Religious Studies, sisters' lateral influence on faith practices, and gender in the work of women healthcare chaplains. I was fortunate to co-edit the well-received volume Women and Religion in the West: Challenging Secularization (Ashgate 2008). I am currently co-editor of the Book Series, Bloomsbury Studies in Religion, Gender, and Sexuality.
As an educator, I also apply an interdisciplinary approach and have collaborated with staff and students from the visual and performing arts to explore critical understandings of race and ethnicity. At Kingston, I have taught on the Sociology programme. I have received two awards for teaching excellence, Kingston's Rose Award and the Student-Led award for Most Innovative Lecturer. I was also a national finalist for a Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence by the Higher Education Academy.
Associate Professor of Sociology