Mentoring
I was shy, a bit quirky, and happiest when I could disappear into my own world. Making things was how I made sense of everything. Drawing, tinkering, obsessing over odd little details – creativity was private, comforting, and quietly rebellious. It let me be myself without having to perform.
I didn’t head towards a single “career path” so much as follow curiosity wherever it led. I studied 3D Design in college and loved the range: jewellery one day, ceramics the next or electronics then something closer to surrealist furniture – playful objects with a bit of mischief in them. What really hooked me wasn’t only ‘what’ I was making, but ‘how ideas become real things’. I had a wood carving and furniture making business for a while but my curiosity nudged me into further study – two more degrees, where I kept returning to the relationship between ideas and practical designing. Even when I was writing academically, designing stayed in the mix: sketching, prototyping, making artefacts as a way to think.
I’m a design researcher at Lancaster University, and I helped set up ImaginationLancaster, a research lab that explores what design can do in the world beyond the University. A lot of my work asks a simple but demanding question: how can design make life fairer, kinder, more equitable. How can we better hear the voices of the seldom heard?
That’s why Escape2Make matters to me. I know, personally, that creativity can be a refuge – but I’ve also seen how making can build confidence, create belonging, and open doors that felt shut. As a trustee, I want to support that space: protecting the playfulness, widening access, and helping more people find their way back to themselves through making.
