About me

I have dedicated my life to understanding the stories people tell themselves and others. My own personal background straddles places, languages, and cultures, and I have spent my entire life knowing what it is like to not quite belong; to occupy a liminal zone. Human beings are so much more complex than these simple lines on a page or tick-boxes on a census questionnaire. We distill entire lives into neat typologies at our peril.

I bring a combination of academic rigour, policy insight, and practical experience to the question of what brings people together and what drives them apart — whether than be through academic research, creative storytelling, or engaged policy and practice. My background includes a doctorate from SOAS, University of London, a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Cambridge, invited contributions at the House of Lords and the British Academy, and authorship of the flagship report for the UK's national Commission on the Integration of Refugees.

Throughout my career, I have worked closely with refugees and asylum seekers, undocumented migrants, persecuted religious minorities, and survivors of human trafficking. I am trained in conflict mediation and have extensive experience facilitating dialogue across cultural, political, and religious divides. Across all of my work, I am committed to bringing marginalised perspectives into policy conversations and helping organisations navigate complexity with confidence, nuance, and credibility.

I am fluent in French and Italian and speak intermediate Arabic (Modern Standard Arabic and Iraqi dialect).

If you want to learn more about me and my work, please get in touch.