I grew up in the north of England and am a graduate of the University of Cambridge (BA Social and Political Studies and M.Phil. Historical Studies) as well as a former Joseph Hodges Choate Fellow at Harvard University from 2000-01.
My PhD studies took me to Florence, where I completed my dissertation at the European University Institute under the masterful supervision of Friedrich Kratochwil. I also spent a lot of my time in Italy playing football (soccer). One of my abiding memories from that time is playing football in the hail and sleet in Sesto Fiorentino, where on one occasion a player from our team had to thaw out his foot with the hairdryer that is customary in Italian changing rooms.
After defending my PhD in 2007, I was a research fellow at the European Union Democracy Observatory for a year working on a project on e-participation in Estonia. From 2008-10 I had the great pleasure of being a lecturer in the International Relations Program at the University of Pennsylvania. I returned to Europe in Autumn 2010 to take up a lectureship at the University of Aberdeen, before moving to the University of Stirling in 2013. In January 2017 I moved to Aston University in Birmingham, before taking up my current post at ESPOL, Université Catholique de Lille, in September 2021, where I am Professor of Political Science and Deputy-Director for International Affairs.
My PhD studies took me to Florence, where I completed my dissertation at the European University Institute under the masterful supervision of Friedrich Kratochwil. I also spent a lot of my time in Italy playing football (soccer). One of my abiding memories from that time is playing football in the hail and sleet in Sesto Fiorentino, where on one occasion a player from our team had to thaw out his foot with the hairdryer that is customary in Italian changing rooms.
After defending my PhD in 2007, I was a research fellow at the European Union Democracy Observatory for a year working on a project on e-participation in Estonia. From 2008-10 I had the great pleasure of being a lecturer in the International Relations Program at the University of Pennsylvania. I returned to Europe in Autumn 2010 to take up a lectureship at the University of Aberdeen, before moving to the University of Stirling in 2013. In January 2017 I moved to Aston University in Birmingham, before taking up my current post at ESPOL, Université Catholique de Lille, in September 2021, where I am Professor of Political Science and Deputy-Director for International Affairs.