I grew up in Sunderland, in the north-east of England. At school I developed a strong interest in history and identity, which I pursued through school and college (while working at various call centres in between) to university. I studied History at the University of Cambridge, International Relations and Human Geography at Newcastle University, and I gained my PhD from Newcastle in 2013 for a thesis on the symbols of the European Union. I have worked at Virginia Tech and at the University of Amsterdam, studying and teaching the relationship between European identity and symbolism. I started working at King's College London in May 2016, just in time for the Brexit referendum, and since then I have been researching the changing nature of "European" identities. I am currently an AEP Lecturer in Britain and European Integration at the Department of European and International Studies, King's College London.