Visiting Professor
Catharine Coleborne
Catharine Coleborne is a Professor of History in the College of Human and Social Futures at the University of Newcastle, Australia, where she is also the Associate Dean Research and Innovation (interim). She is the co-director of the new Centre for Society, Health and Care Research located in the School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences. Her most recent book is Vagrant Lives in Colonial Australasia: Regulating Mobility, 1840 – 1910 (Bloomsbury 2024).
Visiting Research Fellows
Grace Chapman
Dr Grace Chapman is the corporate historian at Reckitt, a consumer goods company focusing on health, hygiene and nutrition. Some of Reckitt’s key brands include Dettol, Gaviscon and Nurofen and she has a responsbility for the global heritage archive and how the company tells its heritage story. She received her PhD in Disability History from the University of Huddersfield in 2022 and worked at Selby Abbey, a major church in North Yorkshire, where she started as community heritage engagement coordinator before becoming the Appeals Director. She has an interest in public history and health histories and is looking forward to exploring these with MMU.
Andrew McTominey
Dr Andrew McTominey is a Visiting Research Fellow at MMU and Heritage Manager at Pennine Heritage, based at the Birchcliffe Centre in Hebden Bridge. He completed his PhD on the social and cultural impact of reservoir construction in 2019 and has taught at Leeds Beckett University, the University of Leeds, and the University of Huddersfield. He took up the role of Heritage Manager in April 2024, where he oversees the Birchcliffe Centre, a grade II listed former Baptist chapel which is now home to events spaces, several small businesses and two archives. Andrew is currently focused on maximising the potential of Pennine Heritage’s rich assets, including in the form of publications and educational outreach. Working alongside MMU provides great scope to achieve Pennine Heritage’s ambition of becoming the premier educational and heritage hub for the South Pennine area.
Jane Stockdale
Dr Jane Stockdale is Curator of the Mental Health Museum in Wakefield. Jane has had many years’ experience in the museum field including working in exhibition and event management and audience development. Her PhD focussed on a study of the role of museums for individuals with mental health conditions. This included examining collecting and representation within museums, alongside engagement practice. The research was framed within an emancipatory methodology and included working alongside individuals with experience of mental health conditions to develop the research programme and participate in museum visiting and engagement. Emerging from the research was an understanding of the potential of co-production within the museum space, particularly when working with objects relating to people’s own lived experience. The wealth of the museum collection in Wakefield offers many opportunities to expand research and inform museological practice. It is hoped that working alongside MMU it will be possible to further understanding of a museum’s role in representing often silenced histories, explore collecting in this field and the potential of the museum as an activist body, and expand on the findings to develop new understandings of co-production practice and the value of objects for people in understanding their own stories.