Matt is a Professor of Global Development and Dean of Research Culture at Northumbria University. His research interests focus on the relationships between civil society, citizenship and development in the global South, with a particular focus on volunteering in humanitarian and development settings, and on young people as development actors. He was Principal Investigator of the Refugee Youth Volunteering Uganda project, a research project exploring volunteering by young displaced people in Uganda and its impacts on their skills and employability and experiences of inequality. He was also Co-Investigator in the Living Deltas project, an interdisciplinary research hub working to support more sustainable futures for deltas in South and South East Asia. Matt previously worked for a development NGO and he continues to work in partnership with a range of national and global development organizations. This work includes co-designing and delivering research projects, acting as a critical friend to organizations and work to help build research and data collection and analysis capacity within development organizations and the groups they engage with. Matt is currently the lead researcher on global collaborative projects involving volunteer organizations, including leading Northumbria’s contribution to the 2026 State of the World’s Volunteerism Report (SWVR) with the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) and working with Habitat for Humanity to strengthen volunteer engagement. At Northumbria, Matt is co-director of the Centre for Global Development (CGD).