I am Associate Professor of Engaged History at Liverpool John Moores University. My research focuses on slavery, race, gender, reproductive violence, and the legacies of slavery in the United States, Caribbean and Britain. I am particularly interested in how histories of slavery and racial injustice continue to shape institutions, public memory, health inequalities, and contemporary debates about racial justice.

I completed my PhD at the University of Liverpool in 2015, with a thesis on sexual violence in the slaveholding regimes of Louisiana and Texas. Before joining LJMU in 2018, I was Lecturer in the History of Slavery at the University of Bristol. Working in Liverpool and Bristol — two cities deeply connected to Britain’s slave economy — has shaped my interest in how institutions confront difficult pasts and their relationships to slavery, empire, and racial inequality.

My book, Voices of the Formerly Enslaved in Louisiana: The WPA Interviews, was published by LSU Press in 2025. It examines interviews with formerly enslaved people in Louisiana, recorded as part of the Federal Writers’ Project, and explores testimony, memory, everyday life, and the politics of representing slavery after emancipation. My wider research has examined sexual violence under slavery, enslaved motherhood, children born of rape, and the ways in which enslaved people narrated violence, family, home, and survival.

I am also interested in the histories of reproductive justice and Black maternal health. My current engaged research connects histories of slavery, racial thought, midwifery, and reproductive violence with contemporary inequalities in maternal healthcare. I lead the Black Maternal Health and History Project, which works with community, cultural, and healthcare partners to explore how historical research can support more culturally informed practice and public understanding.

At LJMU, I established and lead work on the LJMU and Slavery Project, researching the university’s institutional history and its connections to slavery and empire. This forms part of my broader work on universities and difficult histories. I am a member of the Steering Committee of the Universities Studying Slavery Consortium, based at the University of Virginia, and I also serve on the Secretariat of the United Nations Population Fund Global Coalition for the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights of Afrodescendant Women and Girls. 

My work is strongly public-facing and collaborative. I have worked with museums, community organisations, students, healthcare practitioners, and international partners on projects relating to slavery’s legacies, racial justice, Black maternal health, public history, and decolonising practice. I have also provided commentary and consultancy for organisations and media outlets including the BBC, NPR, CNN, Deutsche Welle, AP, The Economist, and national and regional newspapers.

I welcome enquiries from prospective postgraduate students interested in slavery and its legacies, race and gender in the Atlantic World, reproductive justice, Black maternal health, public history, institutional histories of slavery and empire, and the relationship between historical research and social change.

Degrees

2015, University of Liverpool, UK, PhD
2008, University of Liverpool, UK, MA Atlantic History 

Academic appointments

External Examiner, History, Queen Mary University of London, 2023 - present
International Representative, Universities Studying Slavery Steering Committee, University of Virginia, 2023 - present
Lecturer in the History of Slavery, University of Bristol, 2016 - 2018