I welcome enquiries from potential students interested in completing theses or dissertations on topics related to the following: history of tourism, leisure and recreation; history of national parks, parklands and landscape conservation; heritage studies; print history (1700 to present); historical geography; landscape history; modern regional history.

My research is concerned with the cultural history of landscape, primarily in Britain, with an emphasis on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I have published widely on the history of northern England, especially Cumbria, the English Lake District and the Anglo-Scottish border region. My other research interests include print history and historical geography. I am an affiliate of the Regional Heritage Centre, the Cumbria County History Trust and Decolonising Lancaster University.

My current research projects mainly focus on the global histories of national landmarks and landscapes. I am currently finishing a book project entitled A Shadow of a Magnitude, which explores the history of people of African and Afro-Indian ancestry in the English Lake District between the 1600s and 1800s.

In addition, I am also involved in collaborative research projects focused on the historical geography of Cumbria, including 'Envisaging Landscapes and Naming Places: the Lake District before the Map'.

I am a member of the Council of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, and I also edit the Society's News.

My career at Lancaster began in 2012, when I was hired as a research assistant on the ERC-funded Spatial Humanities project. I worked at the University of Birmingham between 2014 and 2016, when I returned to Lancaster as a Lecturer to work with colleagues as part of a Leverhulme Trust-funded project entitled Geospatial Innovation in the Digital Humanities. I completed my University education in the USA. I received my BA from Penn State University in 2004 and my PhD from Stanford University in 2012.

I contribute to both undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in the Department of History and LICA. Modules I convene include HIST107: 'Witches', Warriors, and Slavers: Exploring the History of Lancaster; HIST225: Contested Grounds: Colonialism, Heritage and the History of Protected Landscapes; and HIST273: Sex, Satire and British Society, 1660–1901. I also supervise independent undergraduate and postgraduate research projects. 

I am a Fellow of The Higher Education Academy.