Mark began his PhD in October 2025, after retiring from EY at the end of January 2025 after 39 years at EY. He qualified as a chartered accountant in 1988 and then worked in audit and assurance, focusing on IT risk, controls and assurance. This career saw him work with teams and clients all over the world.

He graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1985 with a 2:1 in History. In 2015-2017 he did an MA at the University of Birmingham in Air Power: History Theory and Evolution, and since then he has been researching and writing on a range of air power-related topics, including research-based articles and book reviews. He has presented twice at the RAF Museum’s conference, first on female aircrew and this year on the RAF’s management of its image since 1945.

Research Interests

• Gender and the armed forces

• Air power

• Technology implementation

• IT risk and control

Thesis

Female aircrew in the RAF: ‘one of the lads’ or a force for change? The experience of female pilots and navigators since 1989.

This thesis will analyse the role of female aircrew in the RAF since pilot and navigator roles were opened to women in 1989. It will consider:

1. how well the RAF prepared for the introduction of female aircrew, how it has supported them since then, and how it could improve support to facilitate better retention of female aircrew;
2. what, if any, impact the introduction of female aircrew has had on RAF aircrew culture and practice;
3. what female aircrew see as the challenges they have faced that are specific to their gender (if any), how the RAF might have addressed these better and the ways in which it could address them better in future.

Supervisors: 

• Professor Juliette Pattinson
• Dr Maria Burczynska

Recent publications

1. RAF Museum Conference
   • Sept 2025 – the RAF and its management of its image since 1945
   • Sept 2023: female aircrew
2. RAF Air and Space Power Review Vol 22 No 3: The RAF and its approach to science in the interwar period
3. The Royal Air Force's Centre for Strategic and Conceptual Thinking on Air, Space and Cyber Power: Book review, Governing From The Skies by Thomas Hippler
4. British Commission for Military History New Researchers Conference November 2018: The RAF and early warning before radar
5. Journal of the RAF Historical Society – various articles
6. The Aviation Historian – various articles and book reviews