Personal statement

My main research interests and specialisation lie in the fields of European Law and Labour Law (particularly European, national, and comparative labour law). I am the author of New Labour Laws in Old Member States (CUP, 2017) which combines empirical work with an innovative comparative method to explore the responses of trade unions in five EU Member States to the challenges of increased migration in the form of new Member State workers who took avail of their free movement rights following the recent EU enlargements in 2004 and 2007.

I have also published doctrinal work on the contract of employment (with David Cabrelli, University of Edinburgh) which was cited with approval by Lords Hope, Wilson and Sumption in the Supreme Court decision Société Générale v Geys [2012] UKSC 63. I am currently (together with David Cabrelli) examining the relationship between domination-based conceptions of social justice and labour law.

I have been involved in a number of projects which bring together leading scholars to reconsider the future of labour law. I co-edited The Future Regulation of Work (Palgrave, 2016) and was selected to participate in a British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award (BARSEA)-funded project entitled Future Directions in EU Labour Law. 

I have also developed an interest in the historical development of collective labour law. In 2015, I published an article in Historical Studies in Industrial Relations which re-examines historical labour law literature in a comparative manner and sheds new light on the development of worker participation in management in Germany and the UK.

I am an active member and on the management board of the Scottish Universities Legal Network on Europe (SULNE) and am one of the country experts (Germany) on the project ‘Access to citizenship in Europe’ run by a consortium of European universities. I have written reports for the European Parliament, the European Commission and the European Public Services’ Union. I am the elected Secretary of the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES) and the Labour Law Section Convenor for the Society of Legal Scholars.

I joined the University of Strathclyde in 2015 from the University of Stirling where I held a lectureship in law from 2011 until 2015. I was a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow at the European University Institute from 2010 until 2011.

I received my Ph.D in Law from the University of Edinburgh in 2011. Prior to this I completed an LL.B. (Hons) in Law and French at the University of Edinburgh and an LL.M (Human Rights) at the School of Oriental and African Studies. In 2011, my PhD thesis was awarded the European Trade Union Confederation’s Brian Bercusson Award for the best PhD thesis to have been submitted in European Labour Law between 2006 and 2010.