I am an Associate Professor in Childhood and Youth Studies, in the Department of Social Work & Social Care, and I'm currently the Director of the Centre for Innovation and Research in Childhood and Youth (CIRCY) - one of the University's twelve 'Centres of Excellence'.

I'm a sociologist by training, but I have also strongly collaborated with the digital humanities (through my role as Lecturer in Digital Social Science in the Sussex Humanities Lab 2015-18 and as the Digital Society strand lead of the Lab 2019-2022).

My primary research interest is in how digital and datafied societies are experienced by children and young people. I am interested in how children navigate wellbeing in a digital context, and how young people create practices and communities of care on digital platforms. I am also interested in the types of data landscapes that surround young people, across the home and public services, and across the public and private sector. I'm currently writing a book for Policy Press on 'Children Under the Data Gaze' that will look at the historical development of children as data subjects across the public and private sectors.

I am currently involved in several research projects:

1. Nuffield funded 'Children’s information: Improving lives through better listening and better data' (2021-2026) project, where I am contributing to a strand of work on children's and families' voices about their data and information. More info here: https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/project/childrens-information
2.  Nuffield funded 'Linking household benefits, financial precarity and child welfare' (2023-2025) project, where I am co-leading the qualitative research stream with colleagues from NCB and Research in Practice. More info here: https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/project/linking-household-benefits-financial-precarity-and-child-welfare
3.  GambleAware funded 'Understanding young people's exposure to influencer content related to gambling or gambling-like behviours' (2024-2025) a project led by Social Finance in collaboration with the Universities of Sussex and Bournmouth, GamCare and YGAM.
   
   I am co-editor of the journal Children & Society.
   
   In my spare time, I volunteer as a safeguarding governor for a local primary school.
   
   
   
   
   
   I am based in Essex House 224.
   
   
   For potential doctoral students:
   
   My supervision interests are focused on childhood and youth, particularly in relation to digital technology and culture. My methodological interests include ethnographic and participatory research approaches, and innovative/digital methods.
   
   At present, I am particularly interested in supervising any studies on topics relating social media and mental health, digital data, the use of social media by teenagers, the use of digital toys/games in childhood and youth.
   
   I have supervised to completion:

• Manuel Cruz Martinez: Exploring the Potential of Video Games to Engage with Deconstructionist History (SHL scholarship).
• Jenny Hewitt: How Young People’s Public Constructions Intersect with the Political and Personal (ESRC +3).
• Evelyn Keryova: Exploring Children and Young People's Critical Thinking: The Case of YouTube.
• Anna Ridgewell: Growing up Green? Disrupting Neoliberalist and Anthropocentric Constructions of Nature in Primary and Early Educational Spaces (ESRC 1+3).
  
  I currently supervise:

• Natalia James: Understanding User's Experience of Behaviour Tracking Apps in Secondary Schools (ESRC 1+3)
• Kirsty Fraser: A Participatory Action Research Approach to Involving Young People as Research Advisors (CIRCY Scholarship)
• Khulud Alhuzaym: Saudi Children's Use of YouTube and Parental Mediation
• Jessica White: Inclusivity in Digital Learning: Dialogic Approaches with Education, Technology and Art
• Suha Alwabel: The role of technoference in childhood