My research examines the ways that cities and urbanisation are governed, focusing on sub-Saharan Africa within the wider context of the global South. I am interested in how urban processes relate to food security and health risks, and the ways in which those links are problematized and addressed. In doing so, I work at the interface of the historical and contemporary, the empirical and theoretical.

After joining the University of Bristol in 2019, I worked closely with Prof Susan Parnell as part of the IUSSP Family Planning, Fertility and Urban Development project funded by the Gates Foundation. My research focused on urban reproductive health and fertility in cities of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. This work has argued for a better understanding of how demographic change impacts, and should be addressed by, urban development and planning.

Through my ongoing involvement with the African Centre for Cities (University of Cape Town) as part of the GCRF-funded PEAK Urban project, I am researching the past and present trends of national urban reform in South Africa.

I retain an interest in emerging approaches to theorising and researching African and Southern urban processes, and have published several pieces on the case study methodology as it relates to African planning education and research. Some of my previous work has addressed the ethics of planning thought and praxis in the urban South, as well as the spatial and political dynamics of post-apartheid South African cities.