Geography

Profile

After seventeen years within industry I embarked upon a degree in 2007, graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2010 with a BA in Human Geography.

My research interests are broadly concerned with social and cultural geography and more specifically the geographies of students. I am particularly interested in how widening participation initiatives have influenced the movement of students since the 1990s with regard to the impacts of ‘studentification’ and the increase in locally based, non-traditional students. My research topic is entitled “(Re)interpreting the Student City: Investigating how Residentially Dispersed Students Consume Space and Place within their Term Time University Location”. This focuses principally upon how residentially dispersed students negotiate the micro-geographies of the home, the university campus and the student community and has been prompted, in part, by the ongoing restructuring of higher education and the potential impacts upon the mobility decisions of students. This research is being supervised by Dr. Carol Ekinsmyth.

I recently presented the initial findings of this project at the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2011.