About
I am a historian of the Roman empire. My research and teaching focus on the history of gender, daily life, science and medicine, and more recently, kinship in ancient Rome. My first book, Birthing Romans: Childbearing and its Risks in Imperial Rome (2024), examines how pregnancy and childbirth were understood, experienced, and managed in ancient Rome during the first three centuries of the Common Era. I am now working on a second book about kinship in Roman culture. This project unfolds in four chapters that take a critical approach to Roman perceptions of relatedness, mutuality, and belonging in conversation with feminist, queer, and diasporic frameworks of kin-making. I also have ongoing research and pedagogical commitments to Roman food history as part of a broader interest in sensory history and theory—and as a way to approach care, fellowship, and cultures of commensality.
At U-M, I am a core faculty member in the Interdepartmental Program in Ancient History and an affiliate of Classical Studies, the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, as well as the Science, Technology, and Society Program. With Colin Webster, I currently co-edit The Rootcutter for the Society for Ancient Medicine.
I am on leave in 2026-27 at the U-M Institute for the Humanities.
Recent Publications
Birthing Romans: Childbearing and its Risks in Imperial Rome (Princeton University Press, 2024)
"How Did Romans Manage the Risks of Childbirth?" Ideas Blog (Princeton University Press, July 31, 2024)
“Animal Wombs: Visualizing the Uterus in Graeco-Roman Culture,” Classical Philology 116.1 (2021): 76–101.
“The Birthday Present: Censorinus’ De die natali,” The Journal of Roman Studies 110 (2020): 141–66.
“Carrying Risk in Antiquity and the Present,” in Mona Oraby and Myrna Perez Sheldon ed., “Religion and Reproductive Science,” The Immanent Frame: Secularism, Religion, and the Public Sphere (2020).
You can also hear me talk about my research with Chelsea Gardner and Melissa Funke on the podcast “Peopling the Past” or with Michael Motia for the "New Books Network."
Courses
Roman Foodways (graduate)
The Roman Family
Rome: The Roman Empire and the Transformation of the Mediterranean World
Women in the Ancient Mediterranean
Growing up in the Roman World
Fields of study
Ancient Rome and the Mediterranean
Gender and society in Greco-Roman antiquity
Science, medicine, magic
Roman imperialism
