I was born in Berkshire, England in 1976 but spent most of my earlier years growing up in Surrey. In the middle of this we had a few years in the Scottish Highlands which I largely remember for being perpetually snowy. My sister and I went to St. Joseph's Primary and Middle Schools before moving on to St. Bede's for our senior and sixth form years. I'd like to say that these years were quite mis-spent, but they really weren't...

After my A-levels, I really wanted to be a geography teacher (!) so went off to the University of Sheffield to study Archaeological Science and Geography dual honours. I took the dual honours option as I was worried that geography alone would be a bit dull, so in retrospect, I'm not entirely sure I was suited to teach GCSE geography... It was the archaeology that really caught my interest though, and I ran with that, and in particular the osteology. After graduating I decided to take the MSc in Forensic Anthropology at the University of Bradford to further my interest in osteology and biological anthropology. I really caught the bug there, and became super-keen to do biological anthropology for a long time to come.

So, I did my PhD in Sheffield under Prof Martin Evison and Prof Andrew Chamberlain in the effect of burning on the skeleton and therefore human identification. I really enjoyed that, and after knocking that out in about 3 years, got my first lectureship at the University of Dundee. I was there for 3 years before taking a Senior Lectureship at Teesside Univesity. After 4 years there, I was promoted to Reader. In between all of this, I have been deployed to a number of forensic incidents throughout the UK and overseas. These are always hard work, but invariably very rewarding and I'm really pleased to still be in touch with many people I have worked with over the years (thanks mainly, if I'm honest, to Facebook). I'm enjoying the work at Teesside, and especially supervising my own PhD students now.

And there we are. I'm married, have two boys, and am trying to get that whole work-life balance just right...