Dr Catriona Cooper

Catriona joined Canterbury Christ Church University in April 2022 as a Senior Lecturer in Digital Humanities. Her role involves delivering teaching in Digital Humanities and Heritage Studies contributing to Archaeology, English Literature, History, Religion Philosophy and Ethics, and Theology modules; supporting research through digital approaches; and helping develop digital strategy across the School.

Her interests lie in multisensory and digital approaches to studying the past, heritage and buildings.

Following the completion of a BA in Archaeology, MSc in Archaeological Computer (Spatial Technologies) and a PhD in Archaeology at University of Southampton my first teaching post was a University of York delivering a skills module in 3D modelling and VR, and contributing to modules Visualisation & Analysis, Public History in Practise, and Cultural Heritage Management 2, in the Departments of History and Archaeology.

In 2019 I took up a post as a Senior Fellow in History, Heritage and Media and Royal Holloway and Bedford College, University of London. I taught on both the undergraduate BA History delivering modules: Rise of the Machines: Introduction to Digital History, Historians on History (Historiography), History in the Making (1st year introductory module), Feast, Fast and Famine: Eating and Drinking in the Middle Ages, and Heritage Studies, and the postgraduate MA Public History and MA History modules: Communicating the Past (podcasting for Public History), and the Historians Toolkit (digital skills).

Joining CCCU in 2022 I lead Humanities in a Digital World (L5 for History, English Literature and Theology) and In Search of the Past (L6 for Archaeology and History). I also contribute to team taught modules including the GIS teaching for Archaeology students as part of Archaeological Skills (L4) and Research Methods in Archaeology (L5), Castles in Medieval Society (L5 for Archaeology and History), Creative Readers and Professional Bookworms (L4 English Literature and Creative Writing) Making your Mark (L4 History), Applied Humanities Employability in Practice (L5 for English Literature, History and Theology) and Themes and Sources in Medieval and Early Modern Studies (L7).

I supervise dissertations in Archaeology and History primarily on themes of Heritage, Digital Archaeology and Medieval Studies, and I am happy to support other dissertations if students think I can offer guidance.

I welcome PhD applications in Digital Humanities, Heritage Studies, Medieval studies, Multisensory Pasts and Buildings Archaeology.

My research is mostly focused on digital approaches to thinking about multisensory understandings of the past. I was an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award student completing my thesis in 2015 with support from the National Trust entitled The exploration of lived experience in medieval buildings through the use of digital technologies. Through this I worked on producing multisensory reconstructions of Bodiam Castle and Ightham Mote as part of the Lived Experience in the Later Middle Ages Project.

Following an academic career break I took up a Postdoctoral Research Associate position on the Listening to the Commons project at University of York. An AHRC funded project creating digital soundscapes of debate as experienced by women listening through a ventilator in the old House of Commons at the beginning of the 19th century. During this time I also worked as the Project Coordinator for the Elizabeth Castle, Jersey Project preparing, running and reporting on two field seasons of public engagement, excavation, geophysics, building survey and digital heritage at Elizabeth Castle, Jersey with Jersey Heritage.

I then worked part-time on two research projects:

- The use of immersive technologies in community engagement as part of Heritage-led Urban Regeneration, University of York. An AHRC funded project exploring how immersive technologies can be used to facilitate community place-making in urban regeneration settings.

- 3d Printing for Museums and Heritage, Fitzwilliam Museum University of Cambridge. An AHRC funded project taking a collaborative approach, working with industry partners, to explore how 3d prints can best be deployed in a museum setting.

Publications

Cooper, C., Hadley, D., Empsall, J. and Wallace, J. 2021 Digital Heritage and Public Engagement: reflections on the challenges of co-production, Internet Archaeology 56. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.56.18

Cooper, C. 2019 You can handle it: 3d printing for museums. Digital Review. Advances in Archaeological Practice. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/aap.2019.39

Cooper, C. & Murphy D. 2019 The Sound of Debate in Georgian England: Auralising the House of Commons. Journal of Parliamentary History Special Issue Space and Sound in the British Parliament: Debating the Palace of Westminster. DOI:10.1111/1750-0206.12413

Cooper, C. Copeland, P. & Johnson, M. 2017. Bodiam: a new survey of the interior. In Johnson, M. (Ed). Lived Experience in the Later Middle Ages: Studies of Bodiam and other Elite Landscapes in South-eastern England. St Andrews: The Highfield Press. ISBN: 9780992633660

Cooper, C. 2017. Lived experience at Bodiam and Ightham. In Johnson, M. (Ed). Lived Experience in the Later Middle Ages: Studies of Bodiam and other Elite Landscapes in South-eastern England. St Andrews: The Highfield Press. ISBN: 9780992633660Dhoop, T.

Cooper, C. & Copeland, P. 2016. Recording and Analysis of Ship Graffiti in St Thomas’ Church and Blackfriars Barn Undercroft in Winchelsea, East Sussex, UK. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. Vol 45. Issue 2. Pages 296-309. DOI:10.1111/1095-9270.12179

Caldwell, D. & Cooper, C. 2016. The medieval to early modern transition in a digital age: new developments relevant to the study of domestic buildings. In Post-Medieval Archaeology. Vol 50. Issue 1. DOI: 10.1080/00794236.2016.1169489

Murrilo Gomez, D. Cooper, C. & Fazi, F. 2014. Acoustic survey of a late medieval building based on geometrical acoustics methods. Forum Acusticum, Krakow, Pl, 07-12 Sept 2014.

I have worked with the National Trust, Jersey Heritage, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Park Hill Residents Association, Allen Archaeology, ThinkSee3D, Parliamentary Archives, HumanVR, British Museum, FutureLearn and the Castles Studies Trust. I am keen to develop projects with small or large heritage institutions, small businesses and artists locally, regionally or nationally.