I graduated from Durham University in 2002 with a MSci (joint honours) Mathematics and Physics degree. I then moved to the University of St Andrews for my PhD studies in Applied Mathematics and Solar Physics. After successfully defending my thesis entitled “Magnetohydrodynamic wave propagation in the neighbourhood of magnetic null points", I accepted a research scientist position at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, USA. Later, I returned to the University of St Andrews as a Research Fellow funded by the Leverhulme Trust. In 2010, I was appointed Senior Lecturer at Northumbria University and became a Reader in February 2014.

I am a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (FRAS) and a Member of the Institute of Physics (MInstP).