About
I am a cultural historian of the Roman empire. My research and teaching focus on the history of gender, childbearing, domesticity, and science and medicine. At the moment, I am finishing up my current book project, Birthing Romans: Childbearing and its Risks in Imperial Rome, which is under contract with Princeton University Press. I spent 2020-21 on leave with the support of a Loeb Classical Library Fellowship.
At U-M, I am a core faculty member in the Interdepartmental Program in Ancient History, as well as an affiliate of Classical Studies, the Science, Technology, and Society Program, and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender.
Recent Publications
"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.”
Undergraduate Courses
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
Medicine and magic
Roman imperialism
