'Katy is a crusades scholar, and her research is primarily focused on medieval historical writing, interfaith contact and medieval mentalities. Her doctoral thesis investigated western narrative representation of crusader-Muslim diplomacy, which challenged prevalent assumptions that western Christian authors were less comfortable with the concept of peacemaking within the context of crusading than their Muslim counterparts. The project argued against this misconception, and that to best understand contemporary mentalities representations of interfaith diplomacy must be properly contextualised alongside broader narrative strategies within each text. Her findings were that other concerns were foregrounded in contemporary texts, and that representations of crusader-Muslim diplomacy were often framed within these contexts.
She has published on the topics of crusader cannibalism, foundation narratives, and digital resources for researching and studying the Crusades, and is currently in the process of reworking her PhD into a monograph and writing up journal articles on both historical writing and the Third Crusade and the Second Crusade text, De Expugnatione Lyxbonensi.
