Director of Studies in Human, Social & Political Sciences (HSPS) at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge

Natalie is a social anthropologist with an interest in activism, party politics, housing, urban development and inequality. Her work has focused on the effects of the 2008 recession and housing crisis on young people’s employment and housing opportunities in the Republic of Ireland, as well as the relationship between democratic disenchantment and a range of social movements, especially the campaign to the Repeal the 8th amendment and legalise abortion, and ongoing campaigns for social and affordable housing. More recently, she has also explored the relationship between the housing crisis, anti-austerity activism after 2008, and the rising popularity of the pro-unification and nationalist party Sinn Féin, north and south of the Irish border. Her current work examines tenant experience of social housing regeneration in Cambridge City, based on qualitative data collected in collaboration with the Cambridge City Council and funded by the Cambridge Humanities Research Grant. She is also interested in how ethnographic data can be put in conversation with quantitative datasets to generate informed evidence bases for policymakers more generally.

Natalie is currently a College Teaching Officer, Fellow and Director of Studies in Human, Social & Political Sciences (HSPS) at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. Prior to this, she held posts as the Chandaria Teaching Associate in HSPS at Fitzwilliam College, a Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Kent, and an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Social Anthropology at Cambridge. She earned her PhD and MPhil at the University of Cambridge and her BA in Anthropology at Yale University.