I’m currently a lecturer in global digital cultures in the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London. I was previously a teaching fellow there, and until recently I was also doing post-doctoral research on the ‘Security on the move’ project based at Durham University.

Before becoming an ‘early career’ academic in various UK universities, I’d been working in the Horn of Africa since 2009. I was first employed by the University of Hargeisa (Somaliland) setting up a new English language department for undergraduates. Between 2012-2015 I worked as a Somali interpreter for the International Committee of the Red Cross, mostly in prisons in south central Somalia and Puntland. I completed my PhD thesis on media and nationalism in Somalia at the University of Edinburgh’s Centre of African Studies in 2017.

Before all that: I did a BA (Chinese and Politics) and MA (State, Society and Development) at SOAS, University of London.

Before all that: I grew up in Newport, South Wales. The surname is anglicised Romanian: my Grandfather emigrated from the old country to the US back in the day, and the name (Cionca) changed along the way.

Back to present: I’m Isabelle’s husband and Sam and Elliot’s dad. I enjoy all the usual stuff, particularly rambling around the Bedfordshire countryside, pointing at farm animals.