Public Engagement

Having grown up on a council estate, I have a particular interest in Widening Participation. Further, my chief hobby is sewing, and I look for any opportunity to combine it with my research. A few examples of my work on public engagement are below.

COP26

At COP26 I created a playable quilted poster to represent an online game developed as part of my research. Crops vs Creatures is an experimental game created by ConFooBio, where players farm plots of land. However, a population of crop-raiding creatures live on the same land. Players must decide how best to manage their farms, taking into account fines and/or subsidies introduced by the government to help protect the creatures.

Students as Researchers

As an outreach ambassador for the University of Kent's Faculty of Social Sciences, I designed lectures and seminars to have clear parallels to real-world issues. For example, one activity I devised that proved particularly popular is a week-long event with Year 8 pupils, where students have the opportunity to develop a behavioural intervention to help protect elephants and rhinos.

World's First PhD Quilt

As a PhD student I was awarded funding from the Postgraduates Community Experience Awards to create the world's first PhD quilt.

The project goal was to provide Kent PhD students an opportunity to explore alternative ways of communicating their research, while enhancing their own well-being through mindful creativity. This visual and tactile representation of the breadth of research undertaken at Kent is a unique form of public engagement.