I am a linguist and historian of the ancient Mediterranean, with expertise in ancient Aramaic, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. My current research focuses on the relationship between these languages and identity in Roman Judaea-Palaestina (63 BCE - 640 CE), using texts written by Christians, Jews, Pagans, and Samaritans.

I received a BA, MPhil, and PhD in Classics at Jesus College, University of Cambridge. I have also been a visiting researcher at the Complutense University of Madrid and the University of Bologna. I joined New College as the Esmée Fairbairn Junior Research Fellow in Classics in October 2025.

Teaching:

At the University of Cambridge, I taught Ancient Greek to undergraduates for four years. I also gave lectures and led seminars on the language of Early Latin inscriptions and literature. While at New College, I shall teach similar courses as well as Biblical Hebrew and courses on Jewish history.

Research interests:

The key questions to my research are: who spoke which languages in Roman Judaea-Palaestina, what did people think about them, and how did all this change over time? Did, for example, ancient Jews living in this Roman province ever speak Latin, or did they dislike it as a foreign, imperial language? Was Hebrew  just another ‘barbarian’ language to non-Jews? To answer these questions, I use all available sources, including inscriptions, Jewish rabbinic literature, Christian religious texts, and works of history written in Greek and Latin.

This research aims to increase our understanding of three main things: the society from which Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism emerged; life in (the provinces of) the Roman Empire; and the directions in which societies that are diverse ethnically, religiously, and linguistically for centuries may evolve.

I began investigating Roman Judaea-Palaestina during my PhD on ‘Language in Roman Caesarea Maritima’, which focused on the provincial capital. I hope to publish a monograph derived from this in the coming years. In my postdoctoral research, I shall now examine Roman Jerusalem, both before and after its destruction.

Selected publications:

‘Future expressions in a sixth-century Latin translation of Josephus’ in Journal of Latin Linguistics 22:2 (2023), 163–198 https://doi.org/10.1515/joll-2023-2006.

‘Review: Cotton, Hannah M., Pogorelsky, Ofer (ed.). Roman rule and Jewish life: collected papers’ in Bryn Mawr Classical Review (2023), https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2023/2023.05.04/.

‘Review: Bader, Bernd (ed., comm.). Josephus Latinus. De Bello Iudaico Buch 1.’ in Bryn Mawr Classical Review (2020), https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2020/2020.12.27/.