Much of my research is at the intersections of applied linguistics and higher education. I currently have active research interests in writing and literacy as a social practice, and contemporary digital literacy and epistemology.

Currently, in the 2025-27 period, I am the Principal Investigator for a Leverhulme Research Project Grant which explores the heritage literacy of Muslim communities in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area. Between 2021-23, I was a recipient of a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for a study called Literacy & Harmony: A Study of Sino-Muslim Heritage Literacy in China.  This researched involved working with a team across various provinces in China. More on the project here.

My current book (under contract with Bloomsbury, 2025) is Heritage Literacy in the Lives of Chinese Muslims. Another recent book is titled A Semiotics of Muslimness in China (2023) and published with Cambridge University Press. Both books draw from extensive fieldwork in Sino-Muslim communities across China.

Prior work includes: The Epistemology of Deceit (2021) by Springer; a 2019 co-authored monograph Academics Writing: The Dynamics of Knowledge Creation; my 2017 monograph Assignments as Controversies (both published by Routledge/T&F); as well as various published research articles in these areas of interest.

Prior to joining Queen’s University Belfast, I was a Senior Researcher on a 2 year ESRC project which investigated the changing nature of academic work, writing, and knowledge creation in English universities. Previous affiliations include Lancaster University and the University of Bradford. I received my PhD from the University of Leeds (ESRC funded) for a thesis which investigated the impact of digital media on the literacy practices of adult learners.

I have not always worked in Universities. My career began in community learning, Further Education where I taught on and managed Adult ESOL and Literacy courses, and awarding bodies. It is from this context that my interest in literacy and language learning began to emerge: through observing how people who were otherwise marginalised and displaced could – through their digital literacies – become core participants of communities in digital environments, and thus radically transform their lives.

I was a trustee and Governing Council member for the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) between 2018-2024, and co-convened the Society’s Digital University Network between 2016-2022. I am also an Executive Editor for the T&F journal Teaching in Higher Education, and serve on the Editorial Board of Springer’s Post Digital Science & Education.

I am also a Research Fellow at Prince Sultan University (Saudi Arabia), and I have conducted Visiting Professor activities at Jilin University (China), and also Jogjakarta State University and Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa University (both in Indonesia).