about me

Standing in Te Papa, New Zealand, I watched my partner spend twenty minutes trying to generate the perfect tsunami in a tank of water while a small child stood completely transfixed beside him — too fascinated to move, too engaged to go for lunch. Two people, completely different ages, held in exactly the same grip by one exhibit. That was the moment I realised that interpreting stories and data for people could be genuinely exciting.

The level of interaction — projection mapping, physical exhibits, mechanics that made you actively think rather than passively absorb — showed what becomes possible when interaction is the story, not a supplement to it.

My background in materials — from glass casting to ceramic engineering for Rolls Royce to teaching ceramics and product design — has always been about understanding what happens when you put things in people’s hands. My published academic work on tactile feedback in learning, completed as part of my FHEA, sits at that same intersection.

My Masters in Design at University of Plymouth gave me the tools to apply that thinking formally. The result was a research framework for building exhibits that give visitors genuine agency — which led me to designing two projects to develop and prove it.