https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9178-8942Research interests
My current research project focuses on the display of extraordinary human, animal, and cryptid bodies in ancient Greece, Rome and the neighbouring civilisations. I organised a workshop on this theme in September 2023, and the conference proceedings Extraordinary Bodies on Display: Humans, Animals and Cryptids from Antiquity to the Present will be published by Routledge in 2025.
My monograph Prosthetics and Assistive Technology in Ancient Greece and Rome was published by Cambridge University Press in 2023. I was awarded an Arts and Humanities Small Research Grant by the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2017 that allowed me to visit museums around the UK to access surviving ancient prostheses and modern replicas of ancient prostheses in order to explore the possibility of creating my own replicas for use in my teaching. Ancient prostheses first came to my attention while I was co-editing the volume Bodies of Evidence: Ancient Anatomical Votives Past, Present and Future, as anatomical votives and prostheses have a certain amount in common. This realisation led me to organise the 'Prostheses in Antiquity' workshop that was funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Classical Association in 2015 (the edited volume of conference proceedings, Prostheses in Antiquity, was published in 2019 by Routledge), and sparked a broader interest in ancient science and technology which led me to organise a 'Medical Machines in Antiquity' workshop in 2017.
I am also interested in the depiction of the ancient world in computer games, and in conjunction with Dr Timothy Peacock in the History Subject Area at the University of Glasgow, was awarded a University of Glasgow ArtsLab Cross-College Research Themes Scheme Grant to fund the 'History and Archaeology in Games and Gaming' symposium, held in May 2018. We are now working on setting up an international research network to bring together academics interested in the depiction of history and archaeology in computer games with members of the games industry. My edited volume Women in Historical and Archaeological Video Games was published by De Gruyter in 2022, and my co-edited volume Women in Classical Video Games was published by Bloomsbury in 2022.
My previous research project, begun while I was the 2011-12 Rome Fellow at the British School at Rome and completed while I was LKAS Research Fellow in Classics at the University of Glasgow in the period 2016-2018, focused on domestic medical practice in ancient Rome, and resulted in the monograph Roman Domestic Medical Practice in Central Italy from the Middle Republic to the Early Empire (published by Routledge in 2019). During this time I was part of a joint research project focusing on skincare in antiquity with academics from the University of Oxford and Keele University, and curators and archivists from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's Museum and Library and the Boots Archive, that was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council as part of its Science in Culture: the Lived Environment theme. I am currently co-editing a volume of conference proceedings, The Reception of Antiquity in Modern Cosmetic Advertising and Marketing that will be published by Bloomsbury's Imagines series in 2025.
My doctoral research project, undertaken in the Department of Classics at the University of Nottingham in the period 2008-2011, focused on health and healthcare in Egypt during the Graeco-Roman period, and resulted in the monograph Approaches to Healing in Roman Egypt (published by Archaeopress in 2012). During this time, as a side project, I began to research Cleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt, and her daughter Cleopatra Selene II, Queen of Mauretania. I have written articles on Cleopatra Selene for both specialist and general audiences, including one entitled ‘Cleopatra’s Daughter’ that was published in History Today. My historical biography of her for a general audience, Cleopatra's Daughter: Egyptian Princess, Roman Princess, African Queen was published by Head of Zeus in the UK in 2022, and in North America by Liveright and the Netherlands by Omniboek in 2023. My second historical biography for a general audience, Fulvia: How She Broke All the Rules in Ancient Rome, will be published by Atlantic Publishing in 2025.
Grants
2024 - Institute of Classical Studies Public Engagement Grant
2023 - University of Glasgow Academic Returners and Research Support Scheme
2022 - Institute of Classical Studies Public Engagement Grant
2019 - Pasold Research Fund Research Activity Grant
2019 - University of Glasgow ArtsLab Cross-College Research Themes Scheme
2017 - Royal Society of Edinburgh Arts and Humanities Small Research Grant Scheme
2017 - University of Glasgow's Early Career Mobility Scheme
2015 - Arts and Humanities Research Council Science in Culture: The Lived Environment Early Career Development Award
2015 - Wellcome Trust Small Grant
Supervision
I am particularly interested in supervising research students working in the areas of impairment and disability in antiquity, the history and archaeology of medicine, the history and archaeology of science and technology, the lives of women in Late Republican and early Imperial Rome, and classical reception topics such as the ancient world in computer games.
Teaching
I teach on the team-taught pre-honours courses Classical Civilisation 1B and Classical Civilisation 2B. I convene the honours courses Cleopatra: Life and Legend, Nature and the Natural World in Antiquity, Ancient Medicine, Impairment and Disability in the Ancient World, and Stargazing: Astronomy, Astrology, and Meteorology in Antiquity, and contribute teaching to the honours courses Ancient Technology in Context. I contribute teaching to the postgraduate courses Theories and Methods for Classics and Ancient History, Approaching the Ancient World Through Literature, and Approaching the Ancient World through Material Culture.
