Claire obtained a BA from the University of Durham, followed later by an MSc in Computing Science from Newcastle University. After graduating she spent five years working in the north east of England in various industries as a software developer and website manager. She returned to Newcastle in 2007 to start a PhD, working under the supervision of Steve Riddle. Her PhD involved developing some new metrics as part of an investigation into whether early project data can be used to predict later change-proneness. After obtaining her PhDshe has continued work at Newcastle as a Teaching Fellow as well as researching prediction models in software engineering.
Her research interests lie in software engineering, particularly in software metrics, volatility and change management, and requirements engineering.