I gained my PhD from Abo Akademi University in Finland in 2001. Between 2002-2005 I worked at the Centre for Research on Families, Kinship & Childhood at the University of Leeds. I joined the Department of Sociology at the University of Manchester in 2005. I was Co-Director of the Morgan Centre for the Research into Everyday Lives 2018-2022 and am currently the Head of Sociology. I am a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and on the Board of Trustees of the British Sociological Association (as Publications Director).

Specific research interests:

My current work concerns the self, belonging, migration, family life and temporality. My previous research has focused on post-divorce parenting, lone motherhood and intergenerational relationships. Methodologically my interests span the use of mixed methods, qualitative interviewing, narrative analysis and biographical methods. 

I am currently involved in the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health, based at Kings College London, as the co-lead for the Innovative Methdods platform.

My recent research concerns ageing in the context of migration, ageing in place, and place and belonging, conducted as part of the following projects:

Centre of Excellence in Research on Ageing and Care in Finland, where I was involved in the Research Group 'Migration, ageing and care'  based at the University of Helsinki .

The experience of ageing in place over time, which was an ESRC-funded project that utilised qualitative longitudinal secondary data to explore experiences of ageing in place across different types of neighbourhood.

‘Place and belonging: What can we learn from the Claremont Court housing scheme?’, an AHRC-funded interdisciplinary project involving colleagues from architecture, sociology, social anthropology and social work.

Other past research projects include ‘Inter/Generational Dynamics’, which ran from 2008 to April 2011 and the cross-national comparative research project 'Children's socio-emotional wellbeing and daily family life in a 24-h economy' in collaboration with colleagues in Finland and the Netherlands (2012-2014).