I am currently a lecturer and programme lead for post-qualifying programmes across Nursing and Health subjects at the University of Dundee. In 2016, I became a full-time Child Health Lecturer at the University of Dundee after three years as a clinical academic fellow. In 2020 I moved to the University of the West of Scotland as lead for Neonatal Nursing in 2020, before returning to Dundee at the end of 2022. I have a sustained track record of delivering professional and accredited nursing midwifery and advanced/specialist clinical programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate level, including MSc supervision. I have had the opportunity to acquire experience in a variety of environments including education, research and publishing as well as clinically. I have collaborated on research projects with the Centre for Public Policy and Management (CPPM) at St Andrew’s University, Maternal and Child Health Sciences (MACHS) at NHS Tayside and the Scottish Improvement Sciences Collaborating Centre (SISCC) and the Maternal and Infant Research Unit (MIRU) at the University of Dundee. I have also served as a consultant on Scottish Government expert reference groups with a focus of perinatal and infant health. I qualified as a Midwife in 1995 and worked across the UK in a variety of posts, but most of my 20 plus years in clinical practice was spent in Neonatal Intensive Care Units as a clinical specialist Neonatal Midwife. 

Areas of clinical and professional interest:

• Women and Child Health
• Neonatal Care (transitional, special and intensive)
• Infant Feeding and Nutrition
• Communication and Organisational Culture
• Continuing Professional Education & Development

Education / Professional Registration

• Senior Fellow of Advance HE since 2025 (Fellow from 2021-25)
• NMC Registered Midwife 1995 to date
• MSc in Advanced Practice (Practice Education) with Dean of School’s Award for Outstanding Dissertation
• Grad. Cert Higher Level Knowledge & Skills in Neonatal Care
• BSc (Hons) Psychology                                              
• BSc (Hons) Midwifery with Neonatal Studies
• ENB 405 (Qualified in Speciality: Neonatal Intensive Care)
• Diploma of Higher Education in Midwifery

Wider Professional Activities

• Lead Midwife for Education for the School of Health Sciences 2023 to date
• Executive Member of ‘The Scottish Neonatal Nurses Guild’ 2020 to date
• Scottish Government: ‘Best Start’ Evaluation Advisory Group Member 2025 to date
• Health Care Improvement Scotland SPSP: Perinatal expert reference group member (2023)
• Chief External Examiner, University of Brighton (2018-2023)
• Programme Disability Coordinator University of the West of Scotland (2020-2022)
• Founder and coordinator of School based staff wellbeing groups ‘Pandemic Peers’ at the University of the West of Scotland (2020-2022) and ‘SWell’ (Social and Wellbeing) at the University of Dundee (2017-2020)
• Go Abroad Coordinator, University of Dundee (2018-2020)
• Member of ‘Team Resilience’ University partnership with a military medical regiment to provide major incident events for undergraduate students and the public at the University of Dundee (2016-2020)

Research Projects

• Key team member of a feasibility study to develop an evidence-informed manualised intervention to compare Cue-Based versus Scheduled feeding for preterm infants transitioning from tube to oral feeding in neonatal units (CuBS), funded by NIHR Health Technology Assessment Programme
• Collaborated on a wide-ranging improvement project looking at breastfeeding and attachment in Scottish NICUs with the Maternal and Infant Research Unit in Dundee (under the umbrella of the Scottish Improvement Science Collaborating Centre (SISCC)
• Published Cochrane reviews with the University of Dundee and NHS Tayside Maternal & Child Health Services (see publications)
• Research assistant at the University of St Andrews on a number of research projects which involved:
• Project work examining organisational culture across several UK paediatric intensive care units.
• Conducting, transcribing and coding interviews and focus groups (various projects)
• Compiling a SPSS data-set for research into voluntary sector organisations
• Clinical research midwife supporting a study by the Tayside Institute for Child Health into the effects of Angiotensin Converting Enzyme activity in infancy