Biography
I am a Lecturer in English at Edinburgh Napier University, specialising in eighteenth-century literature and cultural history.
I am an award-winning scholar in my field and my independent research focuses on the beautiful body, appearance, gender, and more recently on skincare and medical literature. I also have expertise in digital humanities and artificial intelligence, and working with cultural heritage organisations.
I currently hold a British Academy Small Research Grant (Independent Scholar) to research my second monograph, Skincare in Popular and Medical Culture, 1660-1800, an innovative medical, social, and literary history of dermatology in Britain.
My first monograph, Being Pretty in the Eighteenth Century: A Cultural History of Female Beauty is under contract with Bloomsbury and considers female beauty and its conceptualisation within social and literary culture in the long eighteenth century (1680–1800). Preparation of the monograph has been funded by a prestigious Career Development Award from the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (BSECS).
I previously served on the BSECS Council and I am now the Editorial Assistant for the Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies.