Harriet's research is focused on the advancement of the geohumanities, a field that sits at the intersection of geographical scholarship with arts and humanities scholarship and practice. Empirically she explores the geographies of art works and art worlds, theoretically she is interested in the elaboration of core humanities concepts of aesthetics, creativity and the imagination from a geographical perspective. Her current research focuses on the underground as a site of /for the formation of much needed new environmental imaginations.

Collaboration underpins her research practice and alongside written research she has produced artist’s books, participatory art projects and exhibitions with individual artists and range of international arts organizations including Tate, Arts Catalyst, Iniva, Furtherfield and Swiss Artists in Labs.

Harriet is the author of For Creative Geographies (Routledge 2013) and Creativity (Routledge 2016), co-editor of Geographical Aesthetics (Ashgate 2014) and Geographies of Making Craft and Creativity (Routledge 2017). Her next monograph exploring practice-based research in Geography is forthcoming in 2020. In addition she has written over 80 peer reviewed pubications, a selection of which are listed below (for full details please contact Harriet). Her research and collaborations are funded by a range of bodies including the AHRC, The Leverhulme Trust, the British Academy, the Arts Council, and the National Science Foundations of the US, Switzerland and China.

Harriet is committed to supporting future generations of scholars.  She supervises a growing contingent of PhD students including practice-based PhD students in a range of creative practices. She has supervised ten students to completion as primary supervisor and advised a further four. Please see elsewhere on this site for further details of her past and present students. Harriet has been an external examiner for 28 students, not only within geography but in disicplines as diverse as sociology, visual arts, environmental humanities and design. She has also mentored a series of early career researchers, including both permanent academic staff and post-doctoral fellows and artists. 

Harriet has given over 60 invited lectures, keynotes and pleanaries in 16 different countries, and in 2016 she was awarded the Royal Geographical Gill Memorial Award, the Phillip Leverhulme Prize and an AHRC Early Career Leadership Fellowship in recognition of the international influence of her research. 

Harriet is an Associate Editor and member of the founding editorial collective of the AAG journal GeoHumanities and is the Editor of the journal cultural geographies. She is Chair of the Royal Geographical Society's Social and Cultural Geography Research Group and sits on the AHRC and UKRI FLF Peer Review Colleges. Harriet is also the founding co-director of the Royal Holloway Centre for the GeoHumanities. 

As an integral part of her academic practice Harriet runs a PhD and ECR focused Well-Being programme. The importance of this programme and its innovation was recognised with the award (in 2019) of a RHUL Teaching prize. Alongside colleagues from Drama Harriet has received a teaching initaitive award to develop an associated pod-cast focused on PhD student mental health and well-being issues. More about this programme can be found in a forthcoming paper in the open-access journal of critical geography ACME. 

In 2018 Harriet took up the role of the Deputy Director of TECHNE - an AHRC funded Doctoral Training Partnership.