Sarah is a founding member and Director of CIRC, and an associate researcher at the Institute for Research into Superdiversity (IRiS) at the University of Birmingham. She has a BA (Hons) degree in Politics and International Relations, and an MA (Merit) in Migration and Social Policy. She is a qualified Social Work Practice Assessor (post-graduate level). 

She has worked with refugee and asylum-seeking women since 2007. She began such work as the Coordinator of Coventry Refugee Centre’s Women’s Project and Therapeutic Service. Subsequently she was employed by Hope Projects, a Birmingham based charity, as its Housing and Women’s Worker, by BIRCH (a Birmingham based Community Hosting Project) and the Rape & Sexual Violence Project as its Refugee and Migrant Support Practitioner. She is currently Baobab Women’s Project CIC‘s policy and advocacy advocate and is the managing director of the company. Baobab Women’s Project is a community-based CIC working with refugee and migrant women in the West Midlands, assisting them to access immigration, housing and health advice, as well as providing emotional support and signposting to relevant services.

She has researched trafficking among Nigerian and Albanian women, and gender-based violence among refugees in Africa alongside IRiS. She has developed an influencer team of over 30 women with lived experience and supported 20 women to become trained community researchers in partnership with CIRC and IRiS at the University of Birmingham.