Vanessa graduated with her LLB (1997) and PhD (2000) from the University of Glasgow, and was named 'Young Alumnus of the Year' by that institution in 2007. With funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, Nuffield Foundation, Home Office, Scottish Government, Crown Prosecution Service and British Academy, she has conducted extensive research into law and policy responses to sexual and gender-based violence, focusing particularly on professional and law decision-making within criminal, asylum and family justice processes. She has also published on the topic of University disciplinary responses to sexual misconduct on campus.
Across her various research projects, Vanessa has worked closely with the third sector, policy-makers and practitioners to amplify the social impact of her findings – most recently, she has worked with REFUGE and Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse on major projects exploring the links between domestic abuse and suicidality; with Rape Crisis Scotland on studies tracing the impact on rape complainers of receiving a not proven verdict and documenting the current operation of ‘rape shield’ provisions in Scottish sexual offences trials; and with the Crown Prosecution Service on evaluating initiatives under ‘Operation Soteria’ to improve investigative and prosecutorial responses to rape complaints and complainants in England and Wales.
In 2010, Vanessa was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize in recognition of outstanding research achievement, and in 2016 she was nominated as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. Vanessa currently sits on the editorial boards of 'Social and Legal Studies', 'Modern Law Review' & 'Current Legal Problems'; and has twice sat on the Executive Committee of the Socio-Legal Studies Association. Vanessa was also a co-ordinator of the Scottish Feminist Judgments Project. She has been a visiting scholar at Universities in Australia, New Zealand and the US, and joined Warwick in 2016, having previously held Chairs at the Universities of Nottingham and Leicester.