Bio

I grew up in London and graduated with a First Class degree in Philosophy and Theology from the University of Oxford, in 2012.

In 2013, I completed a Master’s degree at Oxford in the Study of Religions with distinction. My dissertation investigated how the arrival of missionary Christianity, colonialism and later waves of Christian revivals transformed ideas about health and wealth in west Africa.

I completed my doctorate at the University of Oxford in 2020. My research focused on the rise of Pentecostal Christianity in Nigeria and its implications on matters of gender and sexuality, especially the status of women. My thesis forms the basis of a forthcoming book. You can find out more about my research here, and my publications here. During my doctoral studies, I also taught religion, theology and anthropology to undergraduates and graduates at Oxford.

After submitting my doctoral dissertation, I was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck College, University of London. I was employed on the Wellcome Trust funded research project, Hidden Persuaders (2014-2021), which investigated historical and cultural fears about mind control, and the roles, real and imagined, of the ‘psy’ professions in that history. The project examined what came to be known, post-war, as ‘brainwashing’, and contextualised our fears of a range of psychological states – from mild suggestion all the way to systematic indoctrination and ‘thought-reform’. At Birkbeck, I also contributed to teaching courses on African history and gender studies to BA and MA students.

Since 2021, I have been a Junior Research Fellow (JRF) in Anthropology, at Trinity College, Cambridge. My forthcoming book, based on ethnographic fieldwork amongst Nigerian Pentecostals, investigates the role of theological and ethical thinking in producing gender dynamics, and ideas about sexuality. My next project will explore questions of maternal embodiment and selfhood in British secular culture.