I work strategically across arts, academia and advocacy. I am interested in how enthusiastic public actions can lead to long term perception and policy changes.
In 2013 I launched the Doing Our Bit advocacy campaign to double New Zealand's refugee quota from 750 to 1500. Drawing together numerous civil society groups, the campaign led to non-partisan policy commitments of an increased quota from every political party in parliament.
In the academic space, I am a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Asia Pacific Refugee Studies at the University of Auckland. My doctoral research and subsequent monograph focused on how urgency and crisis influences critical approaches to environmental communication. In 2023, I received a Fulbright Scholar award to research emergency refugee intakes in the past decade.
In the arts, I am founding editor of Lawrence and Gibson publishing, est. 2005. We have released more than30 books specialising in literary fiction. I'm also a novelist: in April 2022, Down from Upland was published. My previous novel was Rat King Landlord (2020) which was re-released in 2023 in a special, full colour tabloid-size edition with 16 full colour illustrations.
