My research to date can be grouped under four themes: (1) powerful perpetrators; (2) faith and abuse; (3) coercive control; and (4) the sex industry:

1. Professional and powerful perpetrators of sexual violence and abuse, and institutional harm:

• The relationship between authority and coercion and specifically how 'high status/high public trust' professionals perpetrate sexual violence and abuse, and how professional tribunals and panels respond. 
• In November 2022, I was awarded a European Research Council Starting Grant to further this work on professional perpetrators.  This project runs from November 2023 to October 2028. Updates will follow here: Powerful Perpetrators – ERC/UKRI project led by Dr Natasha Mulvihill, University of Bristol, UK.
• Through 2023-2024, I conducted research with Dr Fay Sweeting (Bournemouth) on women's experience of police-perpetrated domestic abuse and what happens when they report to the police.  See related media coverage.  At the end of 2025, Fay and I edited a special issue on police perpetrators for the International Journal of Police Science and Management.
• In 2022, I published a paper on doctor abuse, recognising the potential for sexual coercion and complicity within and between professional cultures.

2. Faith and abuse

• Secured Zutshi-Smith funding with Dr Nadia Agtaie to hold an international symposium in September 2024 on the religious arbitration of marriages involving domestic abuse.  In October 2024, we published a report on the symposium proceedings.  We are guest editing a thematic issue for the Journal of Law and Religion (due for publication mid-2026).
• The symposium follows earlier ESRC-funded work (2015-2018) on justice responses to GBV, including religious arbitration.
• Through 2021 and into 2022, I worked on an Oak Foundation funded team project looking at faith and coercive control.  This included cases of religious leaders (a) as complicit in abuse and/or (b) as abusive intimate partners.

3. Coercive control

• Currently leading with Dr Mary Wakeham (Bristol) a UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) funded project (2025-2027) looking at animal abuse, domestic abuse and homicide.
• Currently writing up research into non-consensual 'rough sex' (outputs 2026) and presented early findings at the annual IASR conference in July 2024.
• Published with Dr Katie Winkle (Uppsala) on robots, coercive control, domestic and sexual abuse - see our paper accepted for ACM HRI 2024.
• Published with Dr Jo Large (Bristol) on online dating harms and social media - see our paper in Social Media+Society (July 2025) and related media coverage.
• Contributed to volumes on (i) coercive control and (ii) sex work in popular song.

4. Sex industry

• Co-author of 2019 Home Office commissioned report on prostitution and sex work and recent book (2022). See related media coverage in The Independent and The Guardian.
• Academic adviser to the National Police Chiefs Council Sex Work Working Group since 2019, contributing to national policing guidance.
• Teach a final year undergraduate Criminology unit looking at the sex industry called 'Sex, Power and Consumption'.

I am Chief External Examiner for the BSc Criminology (including Criminology and Sociology) programme at the University of Brighton (appointed until 2027).

I am External Examiner for the MSc Investigative Forensic Psychology and the MSc Research Methods at Bournemouth University (appointed until 2029).

Prospective PhD applications on the above topics are welcome.