In this episode, Dr. Toni Haastrup of the University of Stirling joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Dr. Haastrup was born in Aberdeen, but moved  to Nigeria when she was very young. She talks about primary and then secondary school there, the decisions she had to make early on about language training in the schools, and then her family’s move to California during the last part of high school. She discusses going to Las Positas in California, and then UC Davis, where she pursued a degree in IR, with a minor in Political Science, and her decision to go to University of Cape Town in South Africa in part because of the 2004 election here in the US.

She reflects on her time at the University of Edinburgh pursuing a PhD while also working three jobs. She spent some time in Warwick after that, where she developed two book projects, a monograph that was  published in 2013 and an edited volume that was published in 2014. She talks about moving to Kent, then to Stirling where she is currently a Senior Lecturer in International Politics. We chat about her approach to writing, how she balances work and life and recharges, and her public engagement and work in fostering the women also know stuff network, which promotes the expertise of women in political science.