I trained as an art historian at the University of Oxford, where I recently completed a doctorate in the Department of History of Art and am currently a postdoctoral associate in the Faculty of History. I specialise in nineteenth- and twentieth-century aesthetic theory in Europe, and am broadly interested in questions around the nature, value, materiality, meaning, and context of art and art discourse, at the intersection of art history, art theory, intellectual history, literature, and philosophy.
I previously trained as a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge and at Columbia University, where I focused respectively on the antigenic characterisation of glial cells, and on the neural correlates of consciousness and perceptual adaptation. I am also a qualified (currently non-practising) veterinary surgeon, with clinical and research interest in anaesthesia. As an undergraduate I read law.
Beyond my current appointment at Oxford, I have held research positions at Cambridge, Columbia, Geneva, King’s College London, and have been awarded fellowships by the Wellcome Trust, the European Union, as well as institutes for advanced studies in New York, Paris, London, Delmenhorst, and Amsterdam. Some of my work has been published.