I am an academic geographer based in London (Queen Mary University of London) interested in relatedness and belonging. I have pursued these interests in many ways: through early work on gender, embodiment, nationhood and creative visual and cartographic practices in Ireland; in terms of complexities of identity and difference along the Irish border; and in relation to ideas of ancestry, origins and descent in family history, genealogy and, most recently, human population genetics. I am continuing to pursue these themes by addressing ideas of European identity and indigeneity in studies of ancient and contemporary DNA. At the same time I am currently extending this work by addressing interspecies kinship in Iceland through a focus on horse and human family histories, genealogies and genomics.

My work has been funded by the Leverhulme Trust, British Academy, the Economic and Social Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.