I joined York St John in May 2013 from Canterbury Christ Church University. Since 2017 I have been Course Lead for the MSc in Occupational Therapy. Clinically, I have worked in a variety of mental health and learning disability services (forensic, inpatient, community). My interest is learning disability and autism and in particular dual diagnosis of learning disability/autism and mental illness. Although now fully in academic I maintain links with clinical practice by mentoring and supervision clinicians in health, social care and education. I am passionate about occupation focused practice and I’m keen to promote this within practice and teaching. I am an international trainer for the Assessment and Motor and Process Skills (AMPS), which is a standardised occupational focused assessment tool and outcome measure. In the UK I have been involved in developing a follow up course looking at the interpretation and documentation of the AMPS assessment and have offered consultancy around this to a number of NHS trusts. I am research active and currently engaged in several research projects related to adults with Autism. I am also engaged in PhD study examining experiences of mainstream schooling for autistic young people.