I currently work as a Research Fellow in the Southeast Asian Ceramics Archaeology Lab, Flinders University. I completed my PhD in 2023, focusing on the archaeology of the Irish in colonial South Australia. My research areas include: social identity and the nature of Irishness; the Irish diaspora, particularly the Irish Australian experience; folk traditions and folklore; ceramics and the ceramic tradition. I blog about my research (occasionally) at www.dontforgetyourshovel.com.

My PhD examined Irish social identity (Irishness) in nineteenth century South Australia, specifically an Irish settlement established in the 1850s near Kapunda. Known as Baker's Flat, this site offered a focus for examining Irishness at a variety of levels, including household and community, local and regional, as well as offering an opportunity to investigate the influences on an Irish community of the ideologies of respectability, improvement and capitalism.