I am a researcher at the University of Cambridge, working in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science and the Whipple Museum of the History of Science. Prior to this I was a curator at the Science Museum, London. In 2014 I was awarded the Munby Fellowship in Bibliography at Cambridge University Library.

My research explores the material culture of science broadly conceived, including instruments, collections and buildings. I seek to show how tools, objects and infrastructure relate to professional, artisanal and commercial identities, and come to shape communities of expertise and practice.

I am Co-Investigator on the AHRC-funded project ‘Tools of Knowledge: Modelling the Creative Communities of the Scientific Instrument Trade, 1550–1914’. This is a collaboration with researchers and curators at the University of Sussex, National Museums Scotland, with partners at Royal Museums Greenwich and the Science Museum Group. Using a dataset called ‘SIMON’ (Scientific Instrument Makes, Observations and Notes), which records information on tens of thousands of artisans and retailers working in the scientific instrument trade, we are using innovative digital tools to explore and narrate the story of science as practice and commerce.

Previous projects include the Leverhulme-funded ‘Lost Museums of Cambridge Science, 1865–1936’, which resulted in the volume How Colletions End.