Gavin is a PhD candidate at the University of Oxford, UK. He holds a first degree from the University of Wales, and Masters degrees from Central European University, Budapest and the University of Oxford.

He lived and worked in Russia for almost five years and first came to Georgia as an English teacher in 2002. He has spent the last three years conducting his PhD research on Georgia.

His interests are criminological in focus and include: organised crime and state responses to it, penal subcultures, and prison and police reform in the post-Soviet space.