ISSE Co-Chair

Lauren Bruce is 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 passionate about inclusivity and supports accessibility in all fields. In her spare time, Lauren loves the Gothic side of life and loves to haunt museums and bookshops! Lauren is the co-founder of ISSE—alongside former Co-Chair Tessa Baber.

ISSE Co-Chair

Michelle is a graduate of Egyptology (MA) from Liverpool, UK. She is currently undertaking independent research on all things Joseph Bonomi the Younger and the reception of ancient Egypt in Victorian England. She has a particular interest in Victorian Egyptianising mortuary architecture and is working on the Mapping Egyptian Revival Graves project.

Michelle is passionate about contributing to making the study of Egyptology accessible, and challenging the legacy of classism and colonialism associated with the topic. When she isn’t busy with her history work, you can find her drawing, writing, reading, or listening to Vincent Price radio plays.

Click here to visit Michelle’s Blog!

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.

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.

ISSE Ambassador

Dr Chris Elliott is a member of the Society of Authors and has been a member of the Egypt Exploration Society (EES) since 1993. He was a contributor to Imhotep Today, a volume on Egyptianising architecture in the series 'Encounters with Egypt' (published by UCL Press, 2003). He has written on the influence of Ancient Egypt in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, KMT, Minerva, and more. He is the author of Egypt in England (published by Historic England, 2012) and obtained his PhD from the University of Southampton in 2019.

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.

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.

Ethics Consultant

Claire I. Gilmour has an MA (Hons) Archaeology/Celtic Civilisation and DipHE Egyptology (Distinction) from the University of Glasgow, MLitt Museum and Gallery Studies from the University of St Andrews, and is a PhD candidate in Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Bristol (Morgan Scholar 2018-19), researching the cultural and academic impact of the study of Ancient Egypt in Scotland. 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. She is also on the committee of the Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East, and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

Events Lead

Manon teaches ancient Egyptian languages and scripts at the Egyptological and Coptological Institute of the Universität Münster. Furthermore, she is interested in questions of how furniture reveals information on the general worldview, the lives, and afterlives of their owners. Thus, in her DPhil “Sleep, Beds, and Death”, completed at the University of Oxford, she focused on the use and meaning of beds in the funerary context of ancient Egypt. As for her current project “The Path to Power”, she analyses the various aspects of education and knowledge at the royal court of ancient Egypt, considering archaeological, iconographic, and textual material from the Old Kingdom to the Late Period. Being Luxembourgish herself, she also started a project on the links between Luxembourg and Egypt(ology) during the 19th and early 20th century. If she is not teaching or researching, she likes to read murder mysteries set in Egypt and watch mummy movies.

ISSE Administrator

Ever since childhood, Abigail has been absolutely enamored by the study of Egyptian texts, attempting to understand them and share them. She began her academic career studying a BA in Liberal Arts (Archaeology, Theology, and Classics) at Durham University. During this course of study she gained her first opportunity to study Egyptology modules, and joined the EES during her first year. Lucky enough to have Dr. Penelope Wilson as her guidance during early attempts at reading longer Egyptian texts, Abigail completed her BA in 2023, finishing with a dissertation titled 'Elohim-Ra: The Egyptian Influence on the Priestly Source and its Creation Narrative (Genesis 1:1-2:4a)', bridging Egyptological and Biblical Hebrew literary study. 

Currently, Abigail is an MA Museum Studies student at University College London, specialising in Egyptological collections. She focuses her studies around the Museum interpretation and reception of Egyptian objects, particularly focusing on early 19th century collections and the role played by Egyptian antiquities in the burgeoning British Nationalism of this time period. Of particular interest is the influence of orientalism on Western perceptions of Egypt, and how this cycles through pop culture, public institutions, and back into academia.

Membership Administrator

Mariana Isabel Machado is a PhD student, and Research Assistant, at the University of Lisbon. Her master’s dissertation focused on the thinite royal tombs in Abydos and how they expressed the royal ideology of the I and II Dynasties. Currently, she is interested in studying royal ideology from archaeological and sociological perspectives and wants to contribute to the understanding of the figure of the king in several periods of ancient Egyptian history.

Academic Liaison Officer

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.

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.

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.

Journal Editor

Louise is a PhD Egyptology candidate at the University of Liverpool, focusing on hybrid culture and identity in Graeco-Roman Egypt and investigating the usage, reception, and meaning behind the Hawara mummy portrait panels. She has a background in ancient history and Egyptology, and teaches classical studies, Greek myth, and Roman history alongside her research. 

Louise also works as part of the Garstang Museum of Archaeology team, focusing on the Garstang Photo Negative archive and the museum's collection of funerary stelae from Graeco-Roman Egypt, and has recently published articles on the topic. She has a passion for understanding hybrid culture and the experience of people living and working in Egypt under Ptolemaic and Roman rule, and aims to use new methodologies rooted in post-colonial theory to reconstruct the complex identities of such individuals. 

Outside of her PhD research, Louise has worked with academic journals such as Interdisciplinary Egyptology (IntEg) as a digital content manager, and has forthcoming publications with Working Classicists and Oxford Archaeology. She is a keen baker, and can often be found experimenting with new recipes.

Bio coming soon