While studying for a Design and Illustration degree at Teesside University, she spent some time in the offices of Acclaim Teesside working on the concept stages of Shadowman. After graduating in 1998 she worked as a freelance concept artist/illustrator before joining the Pitbull Syndicate where she worked on a number of Dreamcast, Playstation 2, X-box and PC racing titles for Accolade, Infogrammes, Atari and Midway. As well as teaching, she has written and contributed to a number of articles on computer gaming and has served as a judge on the Games BAFTA awards three times. In her spare time she is a fantasy fiction writer for 9-12 year olds. In 2006 she was voted one of the Top 100 most Influential Women in the games industry by US based Next Gen magazine, and again in 2013 by MCV magazine. As a former organiser of the world's first annual conference for Women in Games, she likes to talk to women of all ages about how awesome it is to make computer games.