About

I am currently Head of Humanities in the School of Arts and Principal Lecturer in Social and Cultural History at Roehampton University. Commencing a combined degree in Law and Arts at Melbourne University, I chose to only complete the BA honours degree in History before pursuing research on prostitution and the law in Australian history for my MA by dissertation at Melbourne. I came to the UK and continued resarching aspects of gender and crime for my PhD at Essex University. I remain fascinated by the relationship between the criminal justice system, society and culture, focusing on nineteenth-century Britain in my current research. I have edited, along with Cornelie Usborne, an important collection on gender and crime and am currently completing a social and cultural history of infanticide in nineteenth-century England.

Public Engagement Work 

I commenced a deep interest in public engagement work in Australia, where I worked with a collective of young historians making a regular history programme for public radio, and played a key role in a project to preserve and archive records of the Women's Liberation Movement in Melbourne. My UK work has included: 
Early 2003: 'Crime Team', TV Channel 4, main historical expert for one programme 
25 March 2002: live discussion, Woman's Hour, BBC Radio 4, about infanticide 
22 January 2002: live discussion, 'Richard and Judy Show', TV Channel 4, about infanticide 
18 September 1997: 'Leviathan', TV BBC 2, history magazine programme 
May 1997: 'Cabbages and Kings', Radio 4 history discussion programme

Other Professional Activities

I have refereed research grant applications for the Wellcome Trust History of Medicine Programme and the ESRC, and article and book manuscripts for journals and publishers. I was a founder editor of the Australian journal Lilith and co-organized an international conference on Gender and Crime held at Roehampton in 1995, which received a British Academy Small Conference Grant. I was a member of the History Benchmarking Group, April 1998-2000, which set the national standards for History teaching in UK universities, worked for the QAA during 1998-99 as an Academic Reviewer, and have been an external assessor for subject reviews at two different universities. I am currently a member the Social History Society and the British Association for Victorian Studies.