Tel: 0121 204 3810

Email: [email protected]

As a Senior Lecturer in Aston’s Institute for Forensic Linguistics (AIFL), my current research uses language analysis to shed light on issues that emerge at the intersection between Law and psychiatry; domains which primarily pursue different social purposes through profoundly different constructs and methodologies, and yet must interact with one another across myriad legal proceedings. My work explores a broad range of linguistic data including expert psychiatric reports submitted as evidence during murder trials, police interviews, 999 calls, bodycam footage from secure mental health wards, and interactions between anonymous users of online fora.

Prior to working in a forensic context, I held research fellowships on interdisciplinary mental health research projects. I have used insights from pragmatics and non-literal language use to better understand psychotic symptoms, and have used a variety of methods, from conversation analysis to eye-tracking, to investigate a variety of phenomena, including patient/therapist interactions and metaphor comprehension in psychosis. 

2013 - University College London - PhD in Linguistics

2009 - University College London - MRes Speech, Language and Cognition

2007 - University College London - BA Linguistics (1^st class with honours)

*February 2022 - Present, Aston University

Senior Lecturer in Forensic Linguistics

*September 2021 - January 2022, University of the West of England

Senior Lecturer in Linguistics

*November 2019 - September 2021, Aston University

Research Fellow, Institute for Forensic Linguistics

*October 2016 – October 2019, Durham University

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, “Hearing the Voice”

*March 2014 - October 2016, Durham University

Postdoctoral Research Associate, “Language and Mental Health”

 *August 2013 - March 2014, University College London

Teaching Fellow in Linguistics

Lily Calloway  - On analysing computer mediated communications for evidence of encouraged suicide (Primary supervisor, due to submit September 2025)

Jordan Robertson - "You can hear it in the silence": Jury perceptions of suspect silence in police interviews (Associate supervisor, due to submit September 2025)

Lauren Morgan - Using linguistics to enhance investigative interviews with Deaf British Sign Language users (Primary supervisor, due to submit September 2026)

Shannon Franklin -  Reading Covid Fiction: Style and Response (Associate supervisor, commencing September 2024)

Amy Brown - An Investigation into the Influence of Psychopathic Traits and Personality Disorders on Stalker Communication (Primary supervisor, commencing January 2025)