I joined the Department in August 2006 having previously held positions at the University of Sheffield and the University of Oklahoma. As an economic, urban and political geographer my research interests are in three related areas: urban and regional governance; the politics of local economic development; and issues relating to competition and collaboration between firms.

I am currently working on three main areas of research. The first is a continuation of a long-standing interest in the politics of business representation at the urban and regional scales. This collaborative work, with Dave Valler (Oxford Brookes) and others, focuses on how business interests collectively construct and represent their interests in relation to questions of economic governance and development. 

Second, I am working with Gavin Bridge (Manchester) on an NSF-funded project focusing on the changing geographies of knowledge in the oil industry and the ways in which different forms of knowledge help and/or hinder the globalization of US oil firms. This project involves research on the Gulf of Mexico, Sakhalin Island, Russia (along with Mike Bradshaw) and Venezuela.