I am a classicist and historian with particular interests in early Christian and late antique history and literature. I studied Classics and Theology at Oxford, Cambridge, and Manchester, before taking up a Fulbright Scholarship at Berkeley. I then held lectureships at Edinburgh and Durham before moving to Kings in 2017.

Research interests and PhD supervision

• Early Christian history and literature
• Late antiquity
• Historiography
• Hagiography
• Persecution
• Epistolography

My first monograph, on Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History, argued that the first narrative of early Christian history used events and individuals from Christianity’s past to create a new vision of Christianity tailored to Eusebius’ fourth century context. I have also edited collections of essays on hagiography, with Dr. Christa Gray, and on Justin of Rome, with Dr. Ben Kolbeck.

I am currently working on a new study of the persecution of the early Christians that aims to use comparative historiography to transform our understanding of this phenomenon, as well as edited projects on Roman governance, with Dr. Lisa Eberle, historiography and life writing in late antiquity, with Dr. Karl Dahm, early Christian interactions with Graeco-Roman performance culture, with Dr. Ed Creedy, and space in the Roman world, with Dr. George Oliver.

Teaching

I teach a range of modules from Level 4 to Level 7 in the Department of Classics, with a focus on Roman history (of the late Republican, early and high imperial, and late antique periods).

Expertise and public engagement

I have been elected Fellow of the HEA (2016–) and Society of Antiquaries (2019–), to the Council of the Roman Society (2018-2021), and since 2022 to the Advisory Committee for the Save Ancient Studies Alliance (2022–), the editorial board of BICS (2022–), and as Secretary of CUCD (2023–). I have also sat on the Library Committee for the Institute for Classical Studies (2018-24), sat on (2023-25) and chaired (2024-25) the LAHP Classics Subject Area Group, sat on (2021-25) and chaired (2024-25) the Grote Ancient History Prize Committee, and am the Secretary of CUCD (2023-).

In 2022–23, in partnership with the charity Art Refuge, I organised a series of workshops with refugees in Calais and Folkestone, and an exhibition, “Letters of Refuge” (Mar. 2023) which exhibited ancient letters alongside those produced by the modern migrants in response and visual responses by artists. This aimed to highlight the voices of those experiencing displacement, and via juxtaposition both breathe life into the ancient texts and universalise the contemporary voices. A follow up in the 2024 Being Human festival connected our work with Dr. Pillinger’s “Penelope’s Web” project.

I have appeared in mainstream media (BBC Radio 4 In Our Time: "Early Christian Martyrdom"; “Julian the Apostate”, and The Long View: “Aged Premiers”; Times Radio On this Day: “Carnuntum”; “Nika Riots”), and assorted podcasts (HistoryHit: “Rome and the Mediterranean”); Audible’s Hijacked Histories: “Caligula and Nero”; Everyday Anarchism: “Running Rome”; The Know Show: “Eusebius”), and write regularly for the Times Literary Supplement, as well as contributing to The Tablet.

Most Recent Publications

‘Seeing and Secrecy in the Martyrdom of Montanus, Lucius and their Companions’, Journal of Late Antiquity 19.2 (forthcoming 2026).

‘Fowl Play: A British Fatal Charade at Brading Roman Villa’, Britannia 56 (2025), 269–86.

‘Legislation and Christians’, Journal of Roman Studies 115 (2025), 138–61.

Justin of Rome: Apology, Empire and Identity (Berlin, 2024) [special edition of Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 28.1; co-edited with B. Kolbeck].

‘Justin of Rome: Introduction’, Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 28.1 (2024), 1–20 [co-written with B. Kolbeck].

‘Apologists on Trials: Justin’s Second Apology, the Literary Courtroom, and Pleading Philosophy’, Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 28.1 (2024), 49–75.

‘Towards a Discursive History of Christian Persecution’, in Lisa Pilar Eberle and Myles Lavan (eds), Unrest in the Roman Empire: A Discursive History (Frankfurt, 2024).

‘By Whom Were Early Christians Persecuted?’, Past & Present 261.1 (2023), 3–46.

‘Lactantius and Empire: Political Theology in On the Deaths of the Persecutors’, Journal of Late Antiquity 15.2 (2022), 333–66.