I am an international lawyer, academic and practitioner working across the fields of international law, armed conflict, and interventions to assist and protect people caught up in war. I am based at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, where I am a Senior Lecturer in International Law. I teach courses relating to international law and war, and I conduct research on 'everyday' International Humanitarian Law, law and emotions, humanitarianism, (youth) peacebuilding and participatory research methods. I am actively interested in pedagogy, including the use of role-plays, simulations and game-based learning to teach legal and emotional literacy.
I have over a decade of experience working with humanitarian and human rights organizations globally, particularly in the fields of child protection and youth peacebuilding. From 2009-2011 I was Sudan Country Director for War Child Canada, based in Darfur, Sudan. I have also worked in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh; the Central African Republic; South Sudan; South Africa; and Ghana. In Canada, I have engaged in rights and justice projects with prisoners and refugees, and worked with young people in Indigenous communities.
I hold a PhD in Law from the London School of Economics, and I am qualified to practice law as a Barrister and Solicitor in Ontario. I earned a JD and Certificate in Aboriginal Legal Studies from the University of Toronto, and an MSc in Violence, Conflict and Development from SOAS, University of London. I have held a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship at Edinburgh Law School, post-docs at the European University Institute and McGill University, and visiting fellowships at the University of Oxford and Melbourne Law School. My scholarship appears in African Affairs, Leiden Journal of International Law, Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law, International Review of the Red Cross, Refuge, Citizenship Studies, and Criminal Law Quarterly. My first book, The Humanitarian Civilian, was published by Oxford University Press in 2021.