Dr. Hannah Murphy: Principal Investigator
Hannah Murphy is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at King’s College London and Director for the Centre for Early Modern Studies (CEMS). She is a historian of early modern science and medicine in Europe and has published widely on physicians, expertise, decision-making, skin, libraries, record-keeping and the history of writing practices. Her first book, “A New Order of Medicine: The Rise of Physicians in Reformation Nuremberg” was the winner of the Society for Renaissance Studies Biennial Book Prize in 2020.
As well as leading MMoR, Hannah was Co-Investigator on Renaissance Skin, a five-year Wellcome Trust-funded project at KCL led by Evelyn Welch that ran from 2017-2022. As part of this project, she curated the exhibition Visible Skin: Rediscovering the Renaissance through Black Portraiture, in conjunction with the artist Peter Brathwaite. Hannah has served two terms on the Executive Board of RSA Renaissance Society of America, and is the incoming chair of SRS, the Society for Renaissance Studies, based here in the UK.
Eli Cumings: Affiliate member
Eli is a literary scholar whose work explores the representation and interpretation of human difference in early modern texts. She is based in the Society of Fellows at Columbia University, where she is at work on her first book project. This project considers the relationship between theology and race-making in the textual culture of Reformation England, with a particular attention to the category of the 'monstrous'. Eli was a research associate at MMoR between 2022 and 2024, and is delighted to remain an affiliate member of the project.
Dr. Carolin Schmitz: Research Fellow
Carolin is an historian of medicine exploring the interactions of patients and medical practitioners in early modern Spain. She completed her PhD at the University of Valencia in 2016, and her first monograph, Los enfermos en la España barroca (CSIC), in 2018. Carolin joins KCL after holding a Wellcome Trust Fellowship on medical encounters and social order at the University of Cambridge.
On MMoR, Carolin extends her work on patient, practitioner and communal experiences of medical encounters by exploring the practices and trajectories of Iberian enslaved and free black women healers, with a focus on the Canary Islands. While on the project, her research interest has expanded into considering the Global Mediterranean, and how interactions with minoritized, often racialized healers shaped the land- and seascapes on islands and port cities.
Becca Taite: Project Manager
Becca manages the project’s finances, impact programme, events and activities, and all external and internal communication. Becca is an experienced research manager, having managed several large grants at King’s College London including Renaissance Skin, and is PRINCE2 Practitioner certified in project management.