Staff profile

I began my PhD in Durham in 2024. My project is funded by the AHRC. My background is varied; prior to Durham I studied at the University of Exeter, where I did an undergraduate in Mathematics before joining their classics department for my MA. These two (quite diverse) areas are combined in my main research interest - mathematics in the ancient world.

Outside of academia I am a keen dressmaker and amateur tailor. On weekends you can usually find me in a local museum, at a National Trust property, or hiking along Hadrian's wall!

PhD Project

My project explores the mathematical papyri from Egypt during the Greco-Roman period. I am interested in what these sources tell us about the level of mathematical knowledge and the culture which surrounded its creation.

I am particularly interested in what the mathematical knowledge was being used for in an every-day context. In my first year I have looked at geometrical papyri - especially how mathematics was used in agriculture and land management.

I am also interested in the way this mathematics was taught to students at the time and what this may tell us about how the techniques and methods presented in the texts were discovered. The problems in these texts display a range of mathematical difficulty and I have been working on a reconstruction of the process behind the more complex texts.