I joined Edge Hill University in 2010 as a Reader in Education, having lectured in History Education at the Institute of Education, University of London (2008-2010) and St Martins College / University of Cumbria (2005-2008) and having taught history and a range of other subjects in Surrey (1993-2003) and Cornwall (2003-2005). I am a co-editor of Teaching History, an associate editor of The International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research and a member of the editorial panel of The International Review of History Education. My main research interest is history education. I have been interested in historical epistemology and interpretations for many years. I developed a particular interest in the pedagogy of historical interpretations whilst teaching history post-16 and this became the focus of my doctoral thesis, on 16-19 year old students’ understandings of historical interpretations and accounts. I set up the History Virtual Academy (HVA) in 2007 to explore these issues and the uses of online discussion forums as tools for developing students’ thinking. The HVA is a research and knowledge exchange project focused on 16-19 year old students' understandings of historical interpretations and on inter- and intra- institutional collaboration between teachers and lecturers in schools and colleges and historians working in universities. The HVA has been through three iterations (2008, 2009 and 2011), with the support of the History Subject Centre of the Higher Education Academy and Edge Hill University, and I am currently exploring ways of rolling the project out on a national basis. I am interested in a number of uses of information technology and interactivity in supporting historical learning and I have worked and published on the uses of interactive whiteboards and web-design to support historical learning. I have a long-standing interest in a number of aspects of history pedagogy, arising from my work as a practitioner, and I have published pedagogic work on cognitive challenge in history and on causal and agentive aspects of history explanation and I have developed scaffolds to support students’ understandings of historical argument. I am interested in exploring international perspectives on history education and I have worked with history educators in Holland, Cyprus and Lebanon to explore aspects of student thinking and in Kazakhstan on history curriculum design. In addition to expertise in history pedagogy and didactics, I have experience of conducting educational evaluations. In 2008-10 I was principal investigator on a national evaluation of the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz Project and in 2011-12 I evaluated the National Archives’ Transatlantic Teachers’ Project.