Rhodri has been a Lecturer in Science and Technology Studies at Edinburgh since January 2024. Before returning to academia to pursue his PhD in 2016, he held two professional positions in UK politics working as a parliamentary assistant to Mark Lazarowicz MP (House of Commons) and a press and policy officer to Sarah Boyack MSP (Scottish Parliament).

His PhD was funded by the ESRC+3 Advanced Quantitative Methods (AQM) Studentship and focused on understanding the role of selective citation in the scientific literature. Following this, he was awarded an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship to extend his project by developing and refining methods for the detection and evaluation of selective citation in the scientific literature. During his PhD, he co-authored a book, The Matter of Facts (MIT Press), which focusses on scientific development and outlines and contextualises problems in contemporary science.

During his PhD and postdoctoral position, Rhodri worked as a tutor on three undergraduate courses (Understanding Public Policy; Social Policy and Society; Evidence, Policy, and Politics), a guest lecturer (Controversies in Medicine, Technology, and Environment; Digesting Food Policy; Foundations in Responsible Research and Innovation), and developed an online course in systematic literature search and network analysis for literature review for the Biomedical and Social Sciences. In 2019, he was awarded the ‘Best Student Who Tutors Award’ at the EUSA Teaching Awards.

In November 2021, upon completion of his Fellowship, Rhodri took a permanent research position research position at Baillie Gifford, a large asset management firm famous for investing in growth technology stocks. His work consisted of producing original research for investment teams, particularly focusing on theories and models of industry development and sociotechnical transitions, the implications of the deteriorating US-China relationship for industry, stock correlation networks and portfolio diversification strategies, and mapping scientific fields in topics of interest. Beyond his research, he produced quarterly quantitative and thematic risk reports, providing independent challenge for several large equity strategies, was involved in strengthening the firm’s research capabilities, and was involved in forging new academic partnerships and relationships with external experts - leading a funding call for two projects producing climate scenarios for the firm.