Ash has an interdisciplinary academic background. Having studied comparative literature, with a focus on gender and critical theory (broadly conceived), at undergraduate and MA level, Ash joined the project ‘Queer Theory in France’, based jointly at the University of Warwick and King’s College London, as a doctoral researcher. Ash’s PhD project, which examined the theorisation and practice of drag performance, can best be situated in interdisciplinary gender studies. Ash’s PhD thesis and subsequent monograph draw on drag performers’ understandings of their work, subcultures, and identities, and argue that these perspectives show that it is possible to theorize drag in an inclusive, intersectional manner. Ash examined the policies which impacted drag performers in their monograph, and Ash’s current work continues to examine the impact of Government policy on marginalized groups. Ash aims to take an intersectional feminist perspective throughout their research.
Since completing their PhD, Ash has worked at the University of Warwick and the University of Birmingham. They joined POLSIS as a PTVL in 2019 and became a Teaching Fellow in POLSIS in 2021. Ash has taught on second-year and final-year undergraduate modules in POLSIS and has supervised five postgraduate dissertations in the School of Government.