Celine was born on the East Coast of the South Island. After graduating from Otago University, she spent a year working on the Oamaru Mail, her hometown newspaper, then shifted to Auckland to work as a journalist. After two years away, 1984 and 1985, in Ireland, England and parts of Europe, she returned to Auckland and embarked on postgraduate then master’s studies in teaching English as an additional language to adults. She lived and worked in Auckland from 1980 to 2008 as a journalist, a researcher, and a teacher of English as an Additional Language to adults.

Needing a change, she and her partner Andy moved back to the South to Christchurch in 2008, where she worked on the Foundation Studies Programme at Canterbury University. She began her PhD at Swinburne University of Technology and completed it through Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia (2010-2015). A PhD in Educational Philosophy, her topic explored how New Zealanders of Irish and Scottish heritages lived out their connections to the cultures of the homelands while living in New Zealand.

They experienced the earthquakes in Christchurch in 2010 and 2011, sold up and settled in Cambridge in the Waikato. A train ride from Auckland and the beautiful Waitemata Harbour, she now lives in Cambridge, surrounded by the beauty of the trees and the birds, near to extended family. Celine currently works at Wintec, teaching academic English to people of migrant and refugee backgrounds, international students, and mentoring postgraduate research students.