I am Professor of Gender and Culture in the Centre for Postdigital Cultures, and lead the research cluster Postdigital Intimacies.

My academic footprint exists around developing accounts of intimacy in the context of a postfeminist sensibility, through concepts including technologies of sexiness, aesthetic labour, postfeminist healthism and digital feeling. My distinctive expertise is in developing accounts of how intimacy is understood in a culture where ways of understanding the self are determined by the language of economics, competition and individualism, and what happens when these ways of understanding shape how we can relate to ourselves and others. I am also interested in expanding accounts of intimacy, beyond kinship and sexual intimacy, to include a range of human and non-human relationalities. Such accounts are important in a context where notions of the self have radically changed. My research has considered what it might mean to live through such significant changes and how we feel about ourselves in these contexts. The significant societal challenges that my work addresses include the need to develop new ways of thinking about notions of the good life, wellbeing, wellness and positivity through digital technology in relation to the vulnerabilities these concepts engender, by seeking to stimulate more inclusive, equitable and feminist-inspired ways of being in the world.

I am co-founder and PI of the AHRC network 'Postdigital Intimacies and the Networked Public-Private'. Previously, I was PI on the British Academy project ‘TubeCrush as Connected Intimacies’, which was featured across news media. I am currently working on projects that explore technologically-facilitated abused and technologically-facilitated consent, including ‘Postdigital Intimacies for Online Safety’ (Research Excellence Development Fund, Research England) and ‘Consent, Coercive Control and Technologically-facilitated abuse: Co-building policy and digital toolkits for the elimination on online violence against women and girls’ (ESRC). I am also CI on the Marsden Fund (New Zealand) project ‘Exploring the Possibilities of Menstruation and Perimenopause Tracking Apps for People with Diverse Embodied Experiences’.

My research has been published in many high-ranking international journals and edited collections. I am co-author of the books Technologies of Sexiness (2014, Oxford University Press), Postfeminism and Health (2018, Routledge), Postfeminism and Body Image (2022, Routledge) and Digital Feeling (2023, Palgrave Macmillan). I sit on the editorial board for the Journal of Gender Studies.

My research is inspired by a deep interest in the way gender organises personal, social, intimate and cultural relationships, and how these relationships are shaped and reflected in media culture. Through my research, I hope to create new ways of thinking about these links and the way they can stimulate more positive, inclusive and feminist-inspired identities.