I am a researcher, writer, teacher, designer, and raconteur. Born into a family of storytellers—my father a playwright, my mother a poet, and my grandparents political refugees—I grew up surrounded by epic tales, performance, and passionate debates around the dinner table. This has shaped my lifelong interest in how art reflects a greater complex, political, and historical context.

My research expertise is in public policy, labour, and the arts, with a particular focus on the role of cultural subsidy in the organisation of the Australian arts sector. Drawing on history, sociology, political economy, and theatre and performance studies, I examine the evolving structures that govern artistic labour and funding, and how this is embodied in artistic practice.

Currently, my research looks backwards and forwards. My historical research focuses on the role of key institutions—right now, the former Australia Council and Actors’ Equity of Australia—in shaping the industrial relations of the arts sector. By looking back, I seek both a thorough understanding of the current issues surrounding cultural policy, creative labour, and public support for the arts, as well as the good ideas and innovations that have been lost to time. Informed by this history, I seek to contribute to a reform of the structural, ideological, and social foundations of future Australian national cultural policy.

My recently completed doctoral thesis, “The Subsidy Question: Community Theatre and the Integral State” (2025), traces the political and economic forces that have shaped Australian arts funding from the 1970s to the late 1990s. It examines the evolution of Australian cultural subsidy and its implications for community theatre practice alongside two significant shifts in Australian culture: the decline of trade unions, and the rise of neoliberalism. In recognition of the significance of this work, I was awarded a University of Sydney Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Researcher Training) Paulette Isabel Jones Career Award in 2024.

I hold a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Theatre and Performance Studies and Cultural Studies from the University of Sydney. In 2017, I graduated with First Class Honours and the University Medal for my Honours thesis, ‘Transgressing the Truth: Performative ambiguity in autobiographical performance’, and a casebook based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the rehearsals for Belvoir St Theatre’s 2017 production of Hir, ‘“We’re the show that people can’t pronounce”: Belvoir’s Hir and the field of Australian theatre’. In addition to the University Medal I was awarded an Academic Merit Prize for outstanding academic performance throughout my undergraduate degree.

Prior to academia I worked in Training and Development for Australian multinational, Servcorp, designing and implementing training courses, collateral, webinars, and eLearning modules for team members across 150+ locations and 20+ countries. In 2019 I led a major reform project of Servcorp’s client onboarding process, creating over 200 collateral assets customised for the diverse cultures, languages, and compliance laws of over 25 countries; rolling out a new onboarding procedure; developing a team training program; and writing, producing, and starring in client onboarding videos in seven languages. Additionally, I designed and wrote the copy for the Kickstart your Business onboarding brochure, which was distributed to more than 60,000 clients globally.

As a human being, I love theatre, Australian political biographies, old photos of familiar places, ocean swimming, street libraries, Talking Heads, stone fruit season, pub trivia, mid-century design, and 80s sci-fi (especially Robocop).