I went to Birkdale High School, a comprehensive school in Southport, Merseyside, and I did my A-levels at King George V College, also in Southport. I read Mathematics at the University of Warwick and I did my PhD at Imperial College London under the supervision of Professor Martin Liebeck. I was elected to a Junior Research Fellowship at St John's College, Oxford and I held a Lady Davis Fellowship at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I was appointed Lecturer in Pure Mathematics at the University of Southampton and I moved to the University of Bristol in 2013. I have been Reader in Pure Mathematics and Associate Chair of the Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research since 2018.