Meet the committee!

Prof. Salima Ikram

ISSE Ambassador

Salima Ikram is a Distinguished University Professor of Egyptology at The American University in Cairo and has worked as an archaeologist in Turkey, Sudan, Greece and the United States. After double majoring in history and classical and near eastern archaeology at Bryn Mawr College, United States, she received her MPhil in museology and Egyptian archaeology and PhD in Egyptian archaeology from Cambridge University. She previously directed the Animal Mummy Project, the North Kharga Darb Ain Amur Survey, Valley of the Kings KV10/KV63 Mission co-directed the Predynastic Gallery project and the North Kharga Oasis Survey. She has also participated in several other archaeological missions throughout Egypt. She has lectured on her work internationally and publishes in both scholarly and popular journals. She also has an active media presence.

John J. Johnston

ISSE Ambassador

John J. Johnston is a freelance, Egyptologist, Classicist, and cultural historian. A former Vice-Chair of the Egypt Exploration Society (EES), he has lectured extensively at institutions such as the British Museum, the British Film Institute, the Royal College of Surgeons, and the Ashmolean Museum. In addition to contributing numerous articles to both academic and general publications, he has co-edited the volumes, Narratives of Egypt and the Ancient Near East: Literary Linguistic Approaches (Peeters, 2011), A Good Scribe and an Exceedingly Wise Man (Golden House, 2014), and an anthology of classic mummy fiction, Unearthed (Jurassic London, 2013). He has recently contributed to several television documentaries for BBC4, Discovery Science, and Channel 5.

Dr. Jasmine Day

ISSE Ambassador

Dr Jasmine Day, author of The Mummy’s Curse: Mummymania in the English-speaking World (Routledge 2006), is an anthropologist and Egyptologist specialising in mummymania, mummy ethics and Egyptian Revival jewellery. She has published in Egypt: Ancient Histories, Modern Archaeologies (2013), Histories of Egyptology: Interdisciplinary Measures (2014), Victorian Literary Culture and Ancient Egypt (2020), Alternative Egyptologies (in press) and popular Egyptology journals. She has also contributed to the International Congress on Mummy Studies and Tea with the Sphinx conferences and documentaries including Egypt’s Unexplained Files (2019). She is President of The Ancient Egypt Society of Western Australia Inc.

Lauren Bruce

Co-Chair

Lauren R. Bruce is a historian and PhD student focusing on how Egyptian mummified remains were treated and perceived in the nineteenth century during various ‘Egyptomania’ waves. She is interested in the concept of ‘travel and the body,’ and the ethics of displaying mummified remains, concentrating on travel narratives, visual culture, cultural memory, and museum displays.

She is the founder of Narratives of Mummified Remains, a project concentrating on how mummies were transported, displayed, misused, and displaced. Lauren continues to research and publish about ‘mummy brown paint,’ a consequence of the mummy trade.

She is also the creator and editor of The Anatomy Shelf, a newsletter exploring the body in history, literature, and art.

Lauren has appeared in various publications including Epoch Magazine, All About History Magazine, and Art UK. She has spoken at a number of events and conferences and has appeared on podcasts discussing a variety of topics involving the mummy trade. She also has a regular column in the H Rider Haggard journal regarding Haggard and Egyptomania, and is also part of a new academic network ‘Travelling Bodies’ based in Koblenz, Germany. Her research on mummified remains is going to be published in a forthcoming text on Global Egyptomania.

She is passionate about accessibility and inclusivity!

In her spare time, she loves nothing more than reading a gothic book (or two!).

Find her on Twitter: @gothicbookworm

Lauren is co-founder of ISSE—alongside Tessa Baber.

Tessa Baber

Co-Chair

Tessa T. Baber is a PhD candidate at Cardiff University (AHRC funded). Her research centres on a long-forgotten ancient Egyptian burial phenomenon: the ‘mummy pits’. Once a popular attraction with early tourists (visiting Egypt between the 16th-early 20th Centuries CE), these large, collective burials were plundered out of existence by rapacious Egyptophiles in search of ancient artefacts (and mummies) as souvenirs. Despite being (almost) completely destroyed in the process, fortunately these mysterious burial-places are preserved in the accounts left by these early visitors to Egypt; these contain details which can prove useful for modern-day archaeologists, revealing vital information about this little-known ancient Egyptian burial practice and aid in its potential reconstruction.

Tessa’s research in this area has captivated her interest in early travellers’ exploits in Egypt. In particular, how dissemination of their experiences—via published travel diaries/travelogues/letters, public lectures, newspaper and journal articles etc.—came to influence the ‘Egyptomania’ of the era.

With a specialism in the study of ancient Egyptian burial practice, she also has particular interest in the history of the study, collection and (mal-)treatment of human remains by both travellers and early Egyptologists—seeking to help highlight the ethical implications of both historic and modern-day ‘mummymania’, and the urgent need for engagement with current debates over respectful study of this ancient culture.

Tessa is co-founder of ISSE—alongside Lauren Bruce.

Lucy Santos

Administrator

Lucy Jane Santos is an expert in the history of 20th century leisure, health, and beauty.

Lucy has appeared as an occasional contributor on TV and radio, and her historical research has been featured by History Today, BBC History Revealed, Jezebel, LitHub, New York Post, the Telegraph, and on the BBC2 documentary, Makeup: A Glamorous History. Her most recent project is as Creative Consultant for the documentary Obsessed With Light, a film that tells the story of the performance artist Loïe Fuller.

Half Lives: The Unlikely History of Radium is Lucy’s debut book and was shortlisted for the 2021 BSHS Hughes Prize, for books that bring scholarship to new readers by capturing the public imagination while conforming to the rigorous standards of academic research. Her next book, which is a history of the element uranium, will be published in 2024.

Michelle Keeley-Adamson

Membership Administrator & Magazine Editor

Michelle is a graduate of Egyptology (MA) from Liverpool, UK. She is currently undertaking independent research on all things Joseph Bonomi the Younger and Egyptomania in Victorian England. She has a particular interest in Victorian Egyptianising architecture, especially when it comes to graves! She is also the founder of the Mapping Egyptian Revival Graves project.

She has spoken at a variety of events including giving a talk for London Month of the Dead at Highgate Cemetery, and a research paper for the Notes From the Nile conference at the University of Birmingham. She has also appeared on the Haunted History Chronicles podcast talking about Ancient Egyptian ghost stories.

Her research on Egyptianised graves is going to be published in a forthcoming text on Global Egyptomania.

Michelle is passionate about contributing to making Egyptology an accessible topic, and challenging the legacy of classism and colonialism associated with the topic.

When she isn’t busy with Egyptology, you can find her drawing, reading, or listening to Vincent Price radio plays.

Click here to visit Michelle’s Blog!

Shirley M. Addy

Financial Administrator

Shirley M. Addy is the secretary of the Rider Haggard Society and produces its Haggard Journal several times a year. Since her teens, she has been a great fan of his novels and counts Cleopatra as one of her favourites.

In 1994 she completed the three-year Certificate of Egyptology course at Manchester University run by Professor Rosalie A. David. As her final year project, she researched Rider Haggard's deep fascination with ancient Egypt and what he achieved through it. She received a distinction for this work, which became published as Rider Haggard and Egypt (1998). She also researched Egyptomania in Britain and the art of David Roberts for this course.

Shirley is a very keen walker and is a voluntary footpath inspector. She is also co-founder of the Village Sign Society.

Claire Gilmour

Ethics Consultant

Claire Gilmour has an MA (Hons) Archaeology & Celtic Civilisation and DipHE Egyptology (Distinction) from the University of Glasgow, MLitt Museum & Gallery Studies from the University of St Andrews, and is a PhD candidate in Anthropology & Archaeology at the University of Bristol (Morgan Scholar 2018-19), researching the cultural and academic impact of the study of Ancient Egypt in Scotland under the supervision of Prof. Aidan Dodson and Dr Tamar Hodos. She teaches Egyptology, Archaeology and the Ancient Near East at the University of Glasgow, is Chair of Egyptology Scotland, and has worked in museum collections care for over twenty years. She is particularly interested in the history of Egyptology, museums and collecting, the life and career of Alexander Henry Rhind (1833-63), funerary archaeology (especially Ancient Egyptian tomb equipment) and (naturally!) Egyptomania.

Valentin Boyer

Events Co-ordinator

Valentin graduated from the International Master of Art History and Museology (École du Louvre/Heidelberg Universität), He is currently an art historian specializing in Egyptomania and works as a lecturer at the École du Louvre, a temporary worker at the Library of Egyptology at the Collège de France, a museographer for the archaeological site of Elephantine with the German Archaeological Institute and as scientific curator for the exhibition "L’Égypte ancienne dans l'ex-libris" (Belgium, Thuin, 2022).

Valentin works on the perception and reception of ancient Egypt, mainly through painting, contextualizing museographies and bibliophilia (Exlibris). He strives to establish the degree of authenticity and credibility of the patterns represented by finding the archaeological sources of inspirations. This allows him to analyse the sources of archaeological inspiration through the prism of the history of Egyptology and archaeological discoveries, and to study the cultural transfers by analysing the re-appropriations of iconographic themes and patterns.

[To be appointed]

eNewsletter Editor

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[To be appointed]

Book Reviews Editor

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[To be appointed]

Media Reviews Editor

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Emmet Jackson

Committee Member

Emmet Jackson is a part-time PhD student at Cardiff University researching the historiography of Egyptology and Egyptian collections in Ireland. He has an interest in Egyptology, museum collections, Egyptomania and colonialism. He works full time for the Irish Seafood Development agency holding degrees in Zoology and Wildlife Conservation.

Lorraine Evans

Committee Member

Lorraine Evans is a Mortuary Archaeologist and Death Historian, specialising in non-conformist burial rites and practices, funerary architecture and mortality symbolism. She is a successful author of a number of books, ranging from Ancient Egypt to World War One, and has worked on countless historical projects and documentaries. Her research work is often in demand, as is her acclaimed photographic work that has been exhibited throughout the UK. She is currently a PhD Candidate at the IIPSGP.