I am Professor of Feminism, Art and Theory, and Director of the Centre for Doctoral Training: Feminism, Sexual Politics, and Visual Culture at Loughborough University, UK. I was given the Distinguished Feminist Scholarship Award, College Art Association, USA, 2024.

Initially I trained as a painter (University of Newcastle upon Tyne). I have an MA by thesis in Cultural History (Royal College of Art): thesis title The Subtle Abyss: Body-Image and Sexuality in Contemporary Feminist Art.  For my PhD I was fortunate to be supervised by Prof. Griselda Pollock at the University of Leeds; my thesis was Becoming Beauty: The Implications of the Writings of Luce Irigaray for Feminist Art Practices.

After some years working in arts administration and part time teaching, I gained a lectureship in 1992 at the University of Ulster teaching the history and theory of contemporary art to studio Fine and Applied Art students. I was promoted to my first chair there, as Professor of the Politics of Art, and appointed as Head of School, Art & Design. I became Dean of the College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA, USA in 2005;  then Dean, School of Art and Design, Middlesex University UK in 2012; and moved to my present position in Loughborough in 2017. While at Ulster I led Art & Design to a 5* ranking in RAE 2001; and while at Middlesex I led Art & Design to be the University's highest ranking unit in REF 2014.

My publications include Reading Art, Reading Irigaray: The Politics of Art by Women (2006); Feminism-Art-Theory 1968-2014 (2015); The Art of Feminism (2018; co-authors: Luci Gosling; Amy Tobin); A Companion to Feminist Art (2019; co-ed: Maria Buszek); Feminism/Museums/Surveys (2025; co-ed with Lara Perry). Please click on my 'books' and 'essays' pages for further listings.

I am the UK Principal Investigator for Feminist Art Making Histories (FAMH): an oral history and digital humanities project funded by the Irish Research Council and the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (2021-2025), working with Irish PI Dr Tina Kinsella (IADT); Co-I's Dr Elspeth Mitchell (University of Leeds), and Dr Amy Tobin (University of Cambridge), Dr Ana Baeza Ruiz (University of Manchester) and Dr Martina Mullany (IADT). Please click on the 'FAMH' page for more information. 

My board memberships have included: The Andy Warhol Museum; Silver Eye Centre for Photography; The Mattress Factory Museum; Quantum Theatre. I have served on the editorial board for The Art Journal and the editorial advisory group for n.paradoxa. Other roles have included: heading the Creative Entrepreneurs project, to retain artists in post-industrial Pittsburgh; being on the advisory board for the AHRC-funded research project Black Artists and Modernism, led by Prof. Sonia Boyce; membership of the Higher Education Committee of the Association for Art History.