I am training to be a barrister, with a particular interest in legal aid work, especially housing and homelessness law. I will start pupillage at 42BR in September 2025.My journey to the bar was born out of my volunteering work, especially at CEN, where I advocated for vulnerable children facing exclusion from school, and Citizens Advice Hounslow, where I independently pursued a specialism in homelessness law, in response to client need. These and similar experiences reinforced to me the importance of challenging power, both explicit and implicit. My drive and skills supported me in winning not only mooting competitions, but also two scholarships from Inner Temple to support my legal studies.Prior to the bar, I had a career in academia, as a history lecturer at universities. My doctoral research, focussing on trade in the medieval Black Sea, combined traditional historical approaches with environmental and economic ones, and overturned a century of historiography. The resulting thesis was praised by my examiners as “virtuosic”, with a “knack for close critical analysis and combination of diverse pieces of evidence”.In my spare time, I play chess to a high level, with successes including captaining my club to promotion in 2019, scoring the winning point in a county championship in 2023, and placing highly in multiple charity chess marathons through the pandemic and beyond. My love of chess has led to some curious results: I am presently 3rd in the world at chess-diving, and an undefeated chessboxer.I'm also currently training my dog to 'talk' through a system of buttons, with some (limited) success.