I am keen to explore how academic knowledge can be made more impactful and how wider society can engage with my research. Recent projects and initiatives in which I have taken a key role are : 

• MASSmcr: I am on the organising committee for MASSmcr (Music and Sound Studies Manchester). Established in 2018, MASSmcr is an interdisciplinary resarch group that brings together practitioners and theorists who research music and and sonic phenomena.On 9th May 2019, I co-organised the successful MASSmcr launch event entitled Sonic Waves: Music and Sound Beyond Borders. The day culminated with an evening event at The Castle in the Northern Quarter, entitled Mass Assemblage, which I co-curated and co-organised with Dr. Susan O’Shea (Sociology). I compèred, DJ’d and performed at the event. More information on MASSmcr here
• RAH! Podcast: I was an organiser and presenter on the highly successful RAH! Podcast. I also mixed and mastered the episodes ready for broadcast. Each episode of the podcast covered a different topic of research specialisms within the Faculty of Arts and Humanities (and beoyond) at Manchester Metropolitan University, from poetry, to fashion, to architecture. More information on the RAH! Podcast here
• Rural Eerie: On 19th October 2019 at The Peer Hat in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, I developed and co-curated a unique event for the Gothic Manchester Festival run by the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies at MMU. Entitled Rural Eerie, the event sought to explore, in musical form, my research interests in the ‘darker’, ‘stranger’ and ‘haunted’ side of the countryside. As part of a three-piece musical outfit, I explored this idea through an original performance of music, sound and visuals, as well as writing soundtracks to accompany spoken word performances by six poets and writers, the majority of which are based at MMU. This project has since been released as an album. More information on Rural Eerie here and here

My current research and thinking involves:

• The sounds and sonics of the ant-idyllic rural and countryside.
• The intersection of sound and the Folk Horror genre.
• The occult mapping of the UK.

Human geography will equip you with the skills and knowledge to understand the world around you. From the place you live, to those you visit, human geography allows you to make sense of the various social, political, cultural and economic processes that produce the contemporary world. Through applied learning and fieldwork you will develop a host of skills that you can take with you into employment.

As well as delivering you with the knowledge and expertise in Human Geography, and a range of transferable skills for the workplace, I am always keen to develop your individuality as a learner. As such, I design my assessments to allow for individual choice of topic and case study. In my experience, students succeed and excel when they can pursue this individual and independent learning strategy - whether that be in your choice of topic for your final year dissertation or a case study for an essay.

Human geography at MMU is taught with knowledge, expertise and care. You will find the staff at MMU friendly and approachable, and always keen to ignite your passions and assist your studies in any way possible.

I currently teach on the following units:

6F4Z3101 Professional Geographer

6F4Z3120 Introducing Human Geographies 1

6F4Z3121 Introducing Human Geographies 2

6F5Z3101H Fieldwork and Research Design

6F5Z3106 Cultural Geography

6F5Z3108 Frontiers in Human Geography

6F6Z3156 Visual and Sonic Geographies

I have supervised to completion six PhD students and examined many more.

I am currently the supervisor for the following PhD students:

Matteo Polato: The role of resonance-based processes in the emergence of experiences of the supernatural

Markus Hetheier: Countersilence: voicing Manchester’s streets through sound. An interdisciplinary digital media project using soundmaps and psychogeography to express the relationship between the self and the city.

I have three main research areas:

1. Geographies of religion, spirituality and the occult. I have published on the New Age Movement, Spiritualism, prophecy, ideas of faith and space, and sacred space.
2. Geographies of sound and the sonic apprehension of space and place. I have published on using sound in understanding place-making and how sound can be used to make sense of historical landscapes. I am currently writing and thinking about the sonics of Folk Horror and the ‘strange’ countryside.
3. Geographies of spectrality, haunting and monstrosity. I have published on ghost tourism and the geography of the supernatural. 

Each of these research topics are connected by my theoretical interest in embodiment, practice, affect, materiality and more-than representational theories.

I am keen to supervise PhDs that explore the intersection of sound and space, and/or haunting and the supernatural.

In 2021 I commented on the rise of Dark Tourism in the UK during the COVID-19 Pandemic for the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet here