Sarah is an applied Sport Psychologist. In her research, she adopts a narrative approach, studying how athletes and sports professionals draw upon culturally available narratives to make sense of their sporting experiences and to construct their sporting (and non-sporting) identities.  In her PhD, Sarah utilised narrative as a way of studying peak experiences and peak performances in sport, analysing how subjective sporting experiences are constructed, understood and shared through cultural story-telling. Post PhD, Sarah has continued to engage with narrative psychology, exploring how narratives shape athlete development and well-being. Her research has focuses upon various transitions in sport, including becoming a student athlete and dealing with sporting mid-life. Most recently, Sarah has been using narrative to understand the positive and negative impact of cultural stories on athletes’ identities and health.  Current research projects are focused upon the use of narrative to explore the alcohol-sport nexus. Sarah has also contributed to a Knowledge Transfer Partnership to design an app to monitor athlete mental health. Sarah is a member of the Optimising Sport Performance research group.

Sarah has lectured in Sport and Exercise Psychology at Northumbria University since 2001. During that time she has occupied several leadership roles, including Head of Department of Sport and Exercise Science. Sarah currently leads on the School's Professional Doctorate Programmes: Doctor of Sport and Exercise Psychology (DSportExPsy) and Doctor of Sport (DSport) 

Sarah is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Authority (HEA), an Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) Level 5 accredited coach, a Chartered Sport and Exercise Psychologist and is on the Health and Care Professions Council Register (Practitioner Psychologist).  She is also a member of the British Psychological Society (BPS) Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology (DSEP).

Sarah has worked as a sport psychology consultant for athletes and coaches across a range of sports at both National and International level. In particular, she has provided sport psychology support to England Badminton, England Athletics and professional rugby.  Sarah has expertise in narrative psychology and uses this perspective in both her applied practice and her research.