Profile

I am a historian of modern Spain, with a particular interest in the dictatorship of Francisco Franco (1939-75) and the legacies of the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. Before arriving in Lancaster in 2021, I completed my PhD in Modern History at the University of Sheffield, where I researched the experiences of the Francoist war disabled of the Civil War. I left Sheffield in 2019 to take up a Wellcome Trust postdoctoral fellowship at Birkbeck College, London, as part of Professor Joanna Bourke's Sexual Harms and Medical Encounters (SHaME) project. At Birkbeck I began to work on a new project, exploring sexual violence during and after the Civil War from a medical perspective. As part of this work, I researched the role of forensic doctors and psychiatrists in the policing of sexual crimes under National Catholicism, as well as rape victims' experiences of the Francoist court system. My work to date has been published in Past and Present, Journal of Contemporary History, Social History of Medicine, Historia y Política, Women's History Review, and History: The Journal of the Historical Association. My monograph on war disability is currently under contract with Oxford University Press, and will bear the title War Disability, Privilege and the Legacies of the Spanish Civil War.

My new major research project comprises a history of the drug thalidomide in Spain from the late 1950s to the present day, working with the Spanish thalidomide victims' association, AVITE. The project will explore how Spain's context of dictatorship and transition to democracy shaped the experiences of the drug's victims, and more broadly seeks to rethink the history of medico-pharma-citizen-state relations in Spain and beyond.

My research directly informs my teaching at Lancaster, where I convene modules on the history of modern Spain, the history of disability, and the body in war. I welcome expressions of interest from prospective doctoral candidates looking to study the social history of modern Spain, particularly themes relating to gender, disability, mental health, and sexuality. I am also interested in working with research students who wish to explore the history of disability more broadly.

Qualifications

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

PhD Supervision Interests

I welcome expressions of interest from prospective doctoral researchers working on the histories of gender, disability, mental health, sexuality, sexual violence, and the legacies of warfare in modern Spain.