My research interests include the culture, literature, government and politics of the United States in addition to gender, women’s leadership, political leadership, and the relations that bind popular culture and world politics. My primary research area is women in American politics. I am interested in interdisciplinary approaches and my work tends towards interpretative and discourse analytic methods.  

My current project investigates gender and political leadership in the United States with a focus on the American presidency. Offering a multi-modal discourse analysis, my doctoral study will examine and problematise the construction of presidential leadership in the United States, arguing that US presidential leadership is constructed in a particularly narrow gendered way. The aim is to highlight the part that traditional, individualistic discourses of leadership play in theorising and making sense of what it means to lead in this context, and how these may be contributing to and perpetuating a discursive divide between US presidential leadership and women in American politics.

I am an advocate of lifelong learning and have acted throughout my career to support others in accessing and making the most of higher educational and professional development opportunities.