I work on demographic trends and estimation, with a particular focus on Africa. For my Wellcome Post-doctoral Grant I created the Counting Souls Project, aiming to improve the evidence base for long-term demographic trends in Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. I held a BA/Jisc grant to explore the use of machine learning to extract historical demographic microdata in Africa. I then held a Wellcome Small Grant to establish the African Population History Network which is fostering interdisciplinary exchange for a critical approach to population studies and policy in Africa. In 2021 we published a 'forum' on African population history in the Journal of African History, and held an international conference on African population history in Kenya. I have also collaborated on projects on ageing and the demographic impact of HIV/AIDS in Africa.

I am interested in how ideas about reproduction, health and the family change over time, and how ideational change can be measured and expressed in demography. My work is interdisciplinary – primarily at the interface between demography, anthropology and history. I enjoy finding creative synergies between disciplines and seeing how this enables critical thinking in public health, as well as exploring the challenges of this way of working.

I worked for seven years at the LSHTM Cancer Survival Group on measuring and explaining inequalities in cancer survival both within the UK, and internationally, and later leading the the CRUK Cancer Policy Programme. I have an ongoing interest in global health equity and social inequalities in health, and the relationship between research and policy.