A vegan, feminist, historian interested in how constructions of gender, 'race', and sexuality have shaped research into health and access to healing. Research interests include the relationship between health, dis-ease and society; social histories of HIV and AIDS in South Africa; Health and medical humanities; slavery (past and present); gender and violence; and global social justice issues.

I am a Wellcome-funded literary post-doctoral researcher at the Centre of African Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Since completing my PhD which focused on fiction as intervention in African literature, I have moved on to look at the intersections between storytelling, life writing, narratives and and how these forms are used by Malawian writers and performers to investigate issues of health in print, oral literature and verbal arts.

I am a PhD Fellow with the Consortium of Advanced Research and Training in Africa (CARTA), based at the University of Malawi’s College of Medicine. I am part of a multi-stakeholder and interdisciplinary research project on malaria control in communities surrounding the Majete Wildlife Reserve in Southern Malawi. My research involves identifying the motivators and deterrents of health behaviour change in rural communities with poor health systems.