I'm a historian of contemporary Britain with interests in political culture, identity and belonging and the uses of the past. My recent work has focused on archives and recordkeeping in organisations, and most of my time has been spent on collaborative projects with businesses and voluntary sector groups that mobilise their archives and institutional memory to serve their present-day aims. Often, these projects are animated by a concern to address gaps and silences in their records or in those held by conventional archives, for example through oral histories and proactive collecting from communities. Underpinning all of this is a longstanding concern with historical practice, 'thinking with history' and the potential roles and responsibilities of historians in public life, which arose from a first career in policy and government relations work.

I teach and supervise across a wide range of topics in 20th- and 21st-century history and have taken a particular interest in developing placements in a wide range of organisations, as well as collaborative approaches to teaching and assessment with archivists, curators and other professionals. I'm a Trustee of the Business Archives Council, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and serve on the advisory boards for the Institute of Historical Research and History and Policy.