I research the histories of gender, colonisation, and enslavement in the early modern British Atlantic world. My first monograph, The Virginia Venture: American Colonization and English Society, 1580-1660, was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press (2022). It explored how ordinary English women, children, and men, as well as elites, contributed to empire-building and the settlement of England's first permanent colony in America: Jamestown, Virginia. It was widely praised for its innovate and creative use of archival sources across England and was shortlisted for the Royal Historical Society Gladstone Prize (2023). Shortly before the book was published, I appeared on History Hit's Not Just to Tudors, to discuss the Founding of Jamestown.  

I completed my PhD at University College London (UCL) in 2017, under the supervision of Jason Peacey. I began my PhD interested in the political culture of early seventeenth-century colonisation, but became increasingly focused on the social history of colonisation, including the role of women and the "social depth" of public interest in empire. After my PhD I took up a post at the University of Kent as a Postdoctoral Research Associate on a Leverhulme Trust funded project researching seventeenth-century trading corporations. In 2018, I returned to the University of Manchester as a Hallsworth Research Fellow in Political Economy, for my own three-year project on the role of women and families in the early modern British Atlantic empire. 

Between 2021-22, I was Curator for Inclusive History at Historic Royal Palaces, where I researched the histories of people of colour, slavery, and colonialism within the palaces. I disseminated my research through blogs/webpages, display panels, and as co-curator of "Untold Lives: A Palace at Work" (Kensington Palace, 2024). In 2022, I joined the University of Bristol as a Lecturer in Early Modern History before taking up my current role at the University of Sussex in 2024. 

My current research focuses on the role of women in the development of colonisation and racial slavery in seventeenth-century Barbados and their connections with British society. I have an article in Itinerario and recently published an article on Barbary Newton, an absentee enslaving woman during the 1680s, in The William and Mary Quarterly (April, 2025). 

I love sharing my research with the public and have recently appeared on podcasts such as History Hit's After Dark to talk about the failed colony of Roanoke (here), the myths surrounding Virginia Dare (here), and the life of Edward Francis - who poisoned his enslavers at the Tower of London (here). With former colleagues at Historic Royal Palaces, I have created video content on Black lives at the royal palaces (here and here), and I have made an appearance on BBC Radio 4's You're Dead to Me, to chat about the history of the Mayflower (here).