I’m committed to impact and public engagement as an integral part of my academic practice – here’s an overview of the work I’ve done.

Gendering the Museum: A Toolkit | Hidden Stories at the Royal Armouries | Sex Education Zine Cafe | Gendering Interpretations | York LGBT History Month | Freelance heritage work | Media

Gendering the Museum: A Toolkit

I am the co-author, with James Daybell, of Gendering the Museum: A Toolkit – a practical guide to finding hidden histories of gender in material objects and spaces, and diversifying representation of gender in museums through research, interpretation and public programming. You can find out more, and download a copy, at the Gendering the Museum website.

James and I have worked with several organisations, including the Royal Armouries, National Trust and Royal Museums Greenwich, to share the insights of the toolkit and put them into practice. We offer workshops, consultancy and collaborative research opportunities.

Hidden Stories at the Royal Armouries

In 2023, I was Community Project Lead on Hidden Stories, a project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund as part of Leeds 2023. Hidden Stories uncovered histories of gender and sexuality hidden within the collections of the Royal Armouries, and revealed them through an exhibition developed in collaboration with the local LGBTQ+ community.

You can see the object trail developed by our volunteers here. You can also read about our pilot project – a day of trans history celebrating spy and diplomat the Chevaliere d’Eon, in collaboration with artist Luna Morgana and local trans communities – and download the zine we produced here.

Following the completion of Forgotten Battles, I held an AHRC Impact Accelerator Fellowship at the Royal Armouries in 2024.

Sex Education Zine Cafe (Being Human Festival, 2020)

In November 2020, I co-organised an event for Being Human Festival with my colleague Dr Ashleigh Blackwood. The event was popular, selling out in two days and attracting an international audience of 60 people.

Following short talks about our research on how early modern people marginalised by gender, class or sexual practices acquired information about sex, we prompted our attendees to discuss their own experiences of sex education and their vision for the future. We then co-produced a zine with the participants, Sex Education Reimagined.

Comments on our evaluation survey indicated that the event had changed the way they would approach sex education in schools, their personal lives and (in some cases) plans for future academic study.

Gendering Interpretations

In 2018-19, I was postdoctoral research fellow on the international AHRC-funded project ‘Gendering Interpretations of the Collections of the V&A and Vasa Museums’.

My role on this project involved researching how medieval and early modern objects in the V&A’s collections might be gendered through an object biography/prosopography approach, and developing collaborative public engagement events to communicate this research.

I developed new relationships with organisations including the Royal College of Music and English Heritage, as well as individual artists, and I communicated the project’s findings to audiences including museum staff, volunteers and the general public.

The project resulted in commitments to changed curatorial practice at the V&A and Vasa Museums – both influential national institutions – as well as at other institutions including English Heritage and the People’s History Museum.

Together with the project team, I have published an open-access article about the project, as well as Gendering the Museum: A Toolkit (see above).

York LGBT History Month

From 2014-17, I was Outreach Coordinator and then Lead Coordinator of York LGBT History Month. This charity works to engage academic and non-academic partners to organise a festival of over 50 events in the York area each February, celebrating and raising awareness of the place of sexual and gender diversity in history, and creating an opportunity for academics (including myself) to disseminate their research.

During my time as Lead Coordinator from 2016-17, I successfully expanded our volunteer base and sourced sponsorship to create the largest programme yet organised by the charity; I also organised a regional hub of Outing the Past, a national festival of LGBT history.

In 2014-16 I served as Outreach Coordinator, developing new links with local schools and prisons and communicating the history of sexuality and gender to them in order to engage them in the festival.

Freelance heritage work

As well as changing practice at heritage institutions, I have carried out my own curatorial and heritage work – see my heritage page for more information.

Media

I have extensive experience of engaging different public audiences on TV and radio – for past media appearances, please see my media page.