I joined UCC in 2012 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in Shakespeare Studies in 2024. My research focuses on three areas: women in early modern drama; gender in Shakespeare on screen; Shakespeare biofiction. I am an experienced editor and collaborator; at present, I am co-editing my fourth collection, a major critical volume The Palgrave Handbook of Shakespearean Biofiction (forthcoming 2026), with Katherine Scheil. I have presented my research across Ireland, the UK, Europe, and North America. I am passionate about teaching; my contributions were recognised in 2022 with a UCC President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. 

My research expertise encompasses three interrelated areas: women in early modern drama; gender in Shakespeare on screen; Shakespeare biofiction. My research advances knowledge in my discipline by bringing together different bodies of knowledge (Shakespeare studies, gender, film, drama) to produce new understandings of early modern literature and culture, and to generate innovative readings of their contemporary adaptations and afterlives.

My current research includes co-editing The Palgrave Handbook of Shakespearean Biofiction (forthcoming 2026), with Katherine Scheil (U of Minnesota), writing a monograph on Shakespeare on screen, and articles on adaptations of Shakespeare and the depiction of sex-workers in early modern literature. I also regularly review productions of Shakespeare on the stage and screen. In 2016, I was awarded an Irish Research Council New Foundations grant for the project "Celebrating Shakespeare 400: Performing Pericles, Prince of Tyre." My introduction to Pericles for the new Oxford World Classics edition of the play is forthcoming in 2026.

Passionate about teaching and learning, I am the Programme Director of the MA: Medieval and Renaissance Literatures (2023-2026, 2015-2018) and welcome enquiries on this Masters programme.

I endeavor to enhance teaching within my School and university, and beyond UCC, to both enhance my practice and to showcase the impact of research-led teaching. I was the Programme Director of the BA in English (2018-2023). In 2022 my contributions to teaching were recognised with a UCC President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. This award celebrated my promotion of learning through the use of Problem Based Learning (PBL) in the BA in English curriculum. Since joining UCC, I have championed PBL as an innovative pedagogy which inspires and enhances student learning. PBL has been central to the BA in English since its inception in 2014, forming the basis of the 10-credit core module EN1103: Problems in Literature. As I demonstrated during the design-stage of the BA programme and as each new student cohort proves, PBL is a student-centred curriculum that can promote learning outcomes fundamental to the discipline of English: independent and collaborative research, critical thinking, digital literacy, and communication and writing proficiency across different modes (e.g. oral presentation, report, creative writing). PBL fosters deep learning as students encounter relevant, real-world 'problems' which they cannot solve with their existing knowledge, and so it inspires self-directed enquiry and skills development.

I have completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching & Learning in Higher Education (UCC, 2020), and Digital Badges in Universal Design in Teaching and Learning, Problem Based Learning Tutor Training: An Introduction, being a Successful Team Leader, and UCC's Connected Curriculum. I regularly participate in and contribute to forums on teaching and learning (for instance, in 2024 and 2025 I delivered talks in UCC on assessment for large classes; in 2023, I was awarded SATLE-funding to organise the workshop "Promoting learning through effective assessment design," led by guest experts Dr Elaine Walshe (University of Limerick) and John Knight (Buckinghamshire New University).) In 2022, I embarked on an Erasmus+ Teaching Staff visit to Charles University, Prague, exchanging knowledge with colleagues and teaching students in the Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures.