I have been involved with research and teaching at Strathclyde since 2008. My first degree was in History, from the University of Calgary (1991) after which I embarked on a career in the corporate travel management sector, working for a range of multinational and local businesses in the UK and Canada, including American Express and Jarvis-Woodside. I returned to academic life in 2003, gaining a MSc in Tourism from the University of Strathclyde, MRes in Business Management and a PhD in Cultural Studies from Glasgow Caledonian University. I bring strong historicist and humanities perspectives to my teaching and research in the Marketing domain, where my contextual focus is on Cultural Heritage, Destinations and Tourism. 

My research interests lie mainly in the critical appraisal of the commodification of cultural heritage resources, the rendering of places into destinations and, more broadly, the political and cultural discourses underpinning commerce. This is expressed principally in my publications examining the politics of 'Western' representation of Islamic culture and destinations, in which I adopt a Foucauldian/post-Saidian approach with notable contributions in the journals Theory, Culture & Society and Environment and Planning A. I am involved in an ongoing project examining the commercialisation of Ottoman cultural heritage in SE Europe and am an external partner in SOAS-University of London's interdisciplinary Centre for Ottoman Studies. My ongoing activity in broader contexts includes exploring the culturally contingent notion of 'authenticity' in heritage consumption and the commercialisation of 'real and imagined pasts' in ancestral tourism. 

I currently teach classes on Destination Positioning and Management in the BA Business as well as Tourism Resources Marketing, International Culture and Heritage Marketing, and Market Research in the MSc programmes in Tourism Marketing Management, International Marketing and Marketing. I also supervise undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations in related topics.

• Heritage Marketing
• Destination branding
• Cultural theory
• Discourse Analysis