Gabby has worked as a lecturer in the UEA School of Health Sciences (formerly Nursing Sciences) since 2009. She trained as an adult nurse at St Bartholomew’s School of Nursing and Midwifery in London 1992-1995 and immediately established a strong clinical interest in colorectal and stoma care, fostered by working at St Mark’s Hospital and in the National Centre for Bowel Research and Surgical Innovation at The Royal London Hospital. Gabby was appointed in 1997 as a clinical nurse specialist in colorectal and stoma care at the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital, in which capacity she continues to work on an honorary contract for one to two days per month. Remaining clinically involved in this specialist area is central to Gabby’s teaching and research practice.

As a natural extension of her clinical and academic interest in colorectal and stoma care nursing, Gabby is East Anglian Chapter Representative and Chair of the Association of Coloproctology Nurses, nurse representative on the Research & Audit Committee for the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain & Ireland, member of the Grant Awards Committee for Bowel & Cancer Research and member of the Editorial Advisory Board for Colorectal Disease. She is also module organiser for a 40-credit, online, level 7 module in Advanced Stoma Care, which was awarded the Association of Stoma Care Nurses (UK) Chair's Award for Innovation in 2019.

Gabby is Deputy Director of Education (post-registration) and Course Director for the School of Health Science's MSc Advanced Professional Practice programme.

Improving care for people undergoing colorectal and/or stoma-forming surgery is at the heart of Gabby’s research interests. Her MSc and PhD research explored the experience of living with a stoma, focussing on the relationship between body and self, using qualitative research methods. More recently, Gabby’s research focus is to examine the complications people can experience following bowel surgery and investigating interventions and care practices that may reduce these complications. 

Gabby teaches at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, predominantly on surgical nursing, colorectal and stoma care nursing, qualitative research methods and academic skills. She leads the research component of the BSc Nursing and BSc Nursing Degree Apprenticeship programmes in the School of Health Sciences and is passionate about encouraging all nurses to engage with research to develop a more robust evidence-base for nursing practice.

Gabby is Course Director for the MSc Advanced Professional Practice programme. She is module organiser for the Advanced Stoma Care module, a fully online, 40-credit, level-7 module designed to advance the practice of Stoma Care Specialist Nurses working in the UK and internationally and developed in collaboration with the Association of Stoma Care Nurses (UK). Gabby has a strong interest in pedagogical approaches which integrate digital and online learning and is one of the School's 'Digital Champions'.

Gabby has been an Associate Professor since 2021, having worked as Lecturer in the UEA School of Health Sciences (formerly Nursing Sciences) since 2009, and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She completed a first degree in Modern European Studies at Nottingham Trent University and another in 1999 in Nursing Practice at UEA. She has since obtained an MSc in Health Sciences, an MA in Higher Education Practice and a PhD, all from UEA.