I am a Research Fellow at the Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education in Birmingham, UK. Since 2021, my primary research has been as Director of the Doctoral Support Project (DSP), which offers a programme of holistic one-to-one and peer group support to women undertaking doctoral level research in theology. Intentionally addressing the intersectionality of the women's area of research, their personal narrative and their faith journey, I am investigating how the DSP's additional support contributes to the women's academic, spiritual and personal flourishing.

As a feminist practical theologian, I received a PhD from the University of Birmingham for my research into the role, value and construct of chosen practices of silence in the faith lives of contemporary Christian women. This was published as Women Choosing Silence: Relationality and Transformational Practice (London: Routledge, 2019). In response to its findings, I established the Seeds of Silence project which supports, resources and signposts people who are developing a practice of silence as a spiritual discipline. Through engagement with the Sabbath poetry of Wendell Berry, my recent writing in From the Shores of Silence: Conversations in Feminist Practical Theology (London: SCM Press, 2023) explores this discipline as an entry point into the apophatic, and the self's journeying away from egoic self-consciousness towards nondual awareness and the mystical relationality of divine union. I am additionally interested in the role of silence in qualitative interviews and their transcription, and the process of qualitative research conceived as spiritual practice.

During Covid, I moved from Yorkshire to live in the Scottish Borders, where I co-established and co-facilitate the Scottish Spiritual Direction Network. Prior to our move, for more than two decades I was a Music Therapist working with children, young people and adults with complex learning difficulties and autism.