About

Want to know a bit more about what I do? Read on…

(If you’re looking for a standard academic bio, click here)

I study the cultural dimensions of political ecology. Broadly, this means I’m interested in how different forms of power – economic, governmental, bureaucratic, judicial, symbolic or otherwise – relate to processes of environmental change. Power here might include straightforward mechanisms of domination and control or diverse strategies of resistance. To narrow this down a bit, I look at three interconnected areas of cultural production and struggle: heritage, museums, and art. I’m currently (summer 2026), working on a few projects that give an idea of what this looks like in practice:

Across all these projects I combine historical analysis with critical-creative inquiry. I’m interested in how cultural practices and imaginaries emerge from and feed back into “natural” systems and processes, how such socio-ecologies shift over time, and the possibility for new forms of cultural praxis to shape less destructive environmental relations. To this end, I regularly collaborate with creative practitioners to understand how museums and other heritage spaces might become sites of experimental social practice and imagination, with a particular focus on climate and ecology. I’ve published widely on these themes in academic and non-academic contexts.

My current book project – Museum Planet: Culture, Ecology and Worldmaking in the Capitalocene – brings many of these strands together and draws on a decade of research on museums and the climate crisis. Across a series of encounters with museum objects and infrastructures in the UK, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, and the US, and tracing shifts in museological practice from the seventeenth century to the present, the book offers a transhistorical and transdisciplinary account of “the museum” as a distinctive yet erratic apparatus of worldmaking. From paintings depicting the forceful separation of nature and culture in early modern princely cabinets to a floating museum made entirely of plastic bags, Museum Planet seeks to unsettle familiar genealogies of museum making as part of a broader reckoning with the planetary dynamics of capitalist modernity. I have presented on this topic in various forums internationally.

In disciplinary terms, my research and teaching sit across Critical Heritage Studies, Museum Studies, Artistic Research, and the Environmental Humanities. Since 2023 I have also led the BA Global Arts, Culture and Politics – a new cross-disciplinary programme centring the arts and humanities in urgent contemporary challenges, from AI to climate change. Alongside this, I am editor-in-chief of the journal Museums & Social Issues.

Prior to joining the University of Amsterdam I was a post-doctoral researcher and UKRI Early Career Leadership Fellow at University College London. I received my MA and PhD from UCL Institute of Archaeology, and my BA from The University of Manchester. I took up my current position in the Department of Arts and Culture in January 2021. 

Summary CV

EMPLOYMENT

Oct 2023 – / UD1 (Assistant Professor / Senior Lecturer), University of Amsterdam

Programme Coordinator Global Arts, Culture and Politics (March 2023 – )

Member of the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture

Jan 2021- Sept 2023 / UD2 (Assistant Professor / Lecturer), University of Amsterdam

2019-20 / AHRC Early Career Leadership Fellow, UCL Institute of Archaeology

2017-19 / Post-Doctoral Research Associate. AHRC Heritage Priority Area, UCL Institute of Archaeology

2016-17 / Project Curator, Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Library and Collections

2009-18 / Researcher, Research Associate and Consultant, Barker Langham

EDUCATION

2011-15 / PhD, University College London. Rethinking Heritage and Photography: Comparative Case Studies from Cyprus and Cambodia. Date of award: 28 September 2015. Supervisors: Dr. Beverley Butler and Prof. Paul Basu

2007-08 / MA Cultural Heritage Studies. UCL Institute of Archaeology. Distinction

2003-06 / BA (Hons) Ancient History and Archaeology. The University of Manchester. First Class

GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS (Select)

2025 / NWA-ORC (Dutch Research Agenda: Research by Consortia). JUST ART: Creating Common Grounds for Climate Justice Through Artistic Research. Co-Investigator and Work Package Lead.

2023 / Horizon Europe. PITCH: Petroculture’s Intersections with The Cultural Heritage Sector in the Content of Green Transitions. Co-Principle Investigator.

2023 / Dutch Research Council (NWO) Social Sciences & Humanities Open Competition. Cultivating Museum Ecologies Otherwise. Principal Investigator

2022 / AHRC Follow-on-Funding for Impact and Engagement. Ghosts of Solid Air. International Co-Investigator

2021 / British Academy Seed Funding. Anthropocene Museologies. International Co-Investigator

2020 / Visiting Fellowship. Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

2019 / UKRI/RCUK Innovation Fellowship. Highlight Notice in the AHRC Leadership Fellowship scheme (Early Career Route). Project Title: ‘New Trajectories in Curatorial Experience Design’. Lead applicant and Principal Investigator

2011 / ESRC Research Studentship. UCL

AWARDS

2022 / Lecturer of the Year. University of Amsterdam (Faculty of Humanities)