People

Co-Investigator

Marcos is the Pitt-Rivers Professor of Archaeological Science at the University of Cambridge, where he also co-leads the Cambridge Heritage Science Hub (CHERISH). He is also Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Archaeological Science and member of various editorial and advisory boards internationally. His core interests centre around material culture and technologies, the context of innovations, and knowledge transmission. He approaches these subjects through a combination of scientific studies of

archaeological materials, experiments, and historical sources, typically in collaboration with international research students and postdoctoral fellows. He has worked in Europe, America, Asia and Africa, with particular expertise in archaeometallurgy, and is strongly committed to knowledge exchange and public engagement. In addition to his role as co-investigator in the Small Performances project, he leads the ERC-funded REVERSEACTION project.

Co-Investigator

Caroline is Professor of Typography and Co-director of the Centre for Printing History & Culture at Birmingham City University / University of Birmingham, and Chair of the Baskerville Society and Print Networks. She is also a serving member of the Virtual Museum of Printing and the Printing Historical Society. With an interest in typographic history from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, Caroline has published widely. She is the author of three books, including The Kynoch Press 1876-1981: the anatomy of a printing house (2000), Tart Cards: London’s illicit advertising art (2003) and Paris Underground (2005). With Malcolm Dick she has co-edited John Baskerville: Art and Industry of the Enlightenment (2017) Pen, Print and Communication in the Eighteenth Century (2020) and James Watt, 1736-1819: Culture, Innovation and Enlightenment (2020). She is also General Editor for the Printing History & Culture series, published by Peter Lang, and she contributes to numerous journals and writes regularly for the trade and academic press.

 Co-Investigator

Ann-Marie is Associate Professor in the School of Jewellery. The duality of craftsmanship and technology is a constant thread in Ann-Marie’s research and brings a subject-specific perspective to the examination and interpretation of artefacts and their production. The combination of craft, technical and academic expertise has been particularly appropriate in the heritage sector, where the artefact is often the only primary source of information. Through knowledge exchange residencies Ann-Marie has worked with Birmingham Museums Trust and the Museum of London (MoL) utilising craftsmanship expertise to deconstruct and recreate heritage artefacts. The residency with MoL formalised an existing relationship with the museum from which further research was commissioned. The outputs of the research made a significant contribution (eight exhibits) to ‘The Cheapside Hoard: London’s Lost Jewels’ exhibition (2013-14): the most successful exhibition in MoL’s history. As a practicing goldsmith, academic and researcher, Ann-Marie’s research was retuned in REF2014 and the methodological approach, dissemination, and exhibition of ‘The Cheapside Hoard’ significantly contributed to the impact case study ‘Craft Informed 3D printing and digital reconstruction of precious objects changing museum and heritage practice’.

Co-Investigator

Maciej Pawlikowski is Head of the Cultural Heritage Imaging Laboratory (CHIL), which main activities are focused around providing digital content to the Cambridge Digital Library and to academic researchers. Responsible for providing visual data content to the library readers and.  He has led a number of digitisation projects, which include, Parker on the Web, Darwin manuscripts and the Friedberg Genizah digitisation project. He is a member of ISO TC/42 JW26 workgroup focusing on standards for archival imaging, photography of transparent materials and multispectral imaging. Over the years he has developed and designed equipment and techniques to accommodate specialised imaging and non-invasive analysis of cultural heritage artifacts.

Research Assistant

Liam is a Rare Books Specialist at Cambridge University Library, and is the curator responsible for the Library’s Historical Printing Room and its associated collections of type, woodblocks and machinery. In addition to the acquisition and cataloguing of early printed collections, Liam facilitates their use through teaching and outreach and shares discoveries through the Library’s social media platforms. He is involved with a number of scholarly and bibliographical societies, serving as Editor of the Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, Council Member of The Bibliographical Society (where he is Secretary of the Outreach sub-committee) and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. Liam’s own research interests lie in the history of libraries and collecting, and he is nearing the end of a part-time PhD into Antiquarianism, science and networks of knowledge: the archives of the Spalding Gentlemen’s Society, 1710-1760, funded by the Midlands4Cities doctoral training partnership.

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Julia’s interests revolve around re-examining existent histories of technology from multidisciplinary perspectives to socially understand technological choices. To do so, she reverse-engineers prehistoric and historic practices using experimental archaeology and analysing production residues and finished objects.

She is an archaeologist by training, with gained expertise on the scientific analysis of metals and metallurgical by-products. Before this project, she completed a PhD in Archaeometallurgy (University of Cambridge) which challenged the prevailing lineal model of technological development so far associated to bronze alloying technology. This project was based on a case study involving experimentation and the analysis of Iberian slag and technical ceramics (2800-200BC).

As the Research Associate of the ‘Small Performances’ project, she will macroscopically, microscopically and compositionally analyse the Baskerville punches to understand how punch-making was contextually performed. This will generate original knowledge on a vaguely known – yet fundamental – aspect of the history of printing technology.

More broadly, her research interests are related to technical knowledge transmission, rejection and evolution, archaeometallurgy, cross-craft interactions, and materials analysis.

Technical Support (Digitisation)

Mark Box is a skilled Cultural Heritage Photographer with thirteen years’ experience in capturing historical artifacts and collections. Based at Cambridge University Library as Chief Digitisation Technician, Mark is an integral member of the Cultural Heritage Imaging Lab (C.H.I.L). With a background in studio archival photography, Mark has moved between diverse environments, including museums, libraries, and fine art settings. With a keen eye for detail and commitment to preserving cultural heritage, Mark has earned himself a reputation as a trusted expert in the field and has been involved in numerous digitisation projects of profound significance. Serving as the Lead Photographer on initiatives such as The Darwin Correspondence Project, Cliff Webb Project, Royal Commonwealth Society Collection, The Gutenberg Bible, Greek Manuscript’s Project, including project team photographer on Hawkins Archive, Arthur Schnitzler Collection, and Taylor-Schechter Genizah Project, Mark has played a pivotal role in digitising invaluable historical resources for global accessibility. Currently, Mark is working on the ‘Small Performances’ project, a ground-breaking interdisciplinary endeavour spanning from 2024 to 2026. Through this initiative, Mark aims to make a substantial contribution to the history of printing technology.

Technical Support (Engraving)

Anastasia is a jewellery artist, author and lecturer, whose work has been exhibited internationally. Young’s eclectic jewellery is often project based and driven by a combination of ideas and technical investigation; she uses narrative to explore both the design of a piece and its display when not being worn or used. Examples of her work are held in the permanent collections of the Science Museum, London and Central Saint Martins Museum. She recently received a Silver award for her copperplate engraving from the Goldsmiths’ Craft and Design Council, and is interested in the cross-discipline application of traditional craft skills and techniques within contemporary practise. At the moment, this focuses on the intersection between engraving and printmaking.

Technical Support (Tempering and Hardening)

Paul is the School of Jewellery’s Technical Manager he has gradually enhanced the technical provision both in terms of staff and resources to support the School of Jewellery in providing a flexible manufacturing facility to enhance the students’ potential to create original products. Paul’s range of processes is extensive from tool making, metal spinning, precision machining to Arduino programming and everything in between. Paul is never happier than in the workshops supporting students to solve manufacturing challenges or supporting their learning with other related skills. His skill set has been called upon by Birmingham Museum Trust to repair, fabricate and demonstrate tooling for fly presses at the Jewellery Quarter Museum as well as supporting the behind-the-scenes sets and props for the TV jewellery making series All that Glitters.

Technical Support (3d Printing)

Keith is a senior CAD CAM technologist at the Centre for Digital Design and Manufacturing with over forty years’ experience in the jewellery industry. Adcock’s career has bridged both the physical and virtual construction of objects, initially apprenticed to the trade, he specialized in dies and tools for manufacturing jewellers. He subsequently interfaced the physical knowledge of tool manufacture with CAD CAM and downstream activities such as rapid prototyping, laser scanning and sintering.

Type Design Consultant

Type designer, researcher and educator who lives and works in London. Graduated from the Faculty of Design at Politecnico di Milano, in parallel to his design work, he taught Type Design, Lettering and Typography. In 2011, he moved to England where he got a Master in Typeface design at the University of Reading. From 2012 to 2019, he worked at Dalton Maag studio in London, where he held the role of senior type designer and team manager, contributing to the development of projects of international relevance. Since 2015, he has been a visiting lecturer on the Masters in Typeface design at the University of Reading, UK. Besides designing and teaching, he is a researcher, focusing on the use of historical models in typeface design practice. Together with Riccardo Olocco is the co-author of Designing type revivals, that gives

Type Design Consultant

Riccardo Olocco, type designer and co-founder of CAST foundry, is a researcher in the history of type and visiting research fellow at the University of Reading, where in 2019 he completed his PhD on 15th-century Venetian romans. He publishes articles and lectures in several countries. His book with Michele Patanè, Designing type revivals, was published in 2022.

Lucy is the Project Coordinator for Small Performances. She joined in 2024 following various roles in academia and the museum/gallery sector at institutions including The Scott Polar Research Institute, St. John’s College Cambridge, the Biostatistics Unit and Trumpington Gallery. She has a keen interest in the arts, is Secretary of the Friends of Kettle’s Yard and a WSET Level 2 (so far).

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Emily is an evolutionary morphologist, working at the intersection of archaeology, biological anthropology, and evolutionary biology. She is interested in quantifying patterns of shape variation and evolution, both in biological and cultural settings, and has been involved in research on the shape of micromammalian postcranial bones, the lower jaw of limbed vertebrates, carnivoran lower jaws, salamander pelves, and Cycladic figurines.

She studied Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Southampton (2019), during which she was also a Visiting Researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa (2018), and worked predominantly on the faunal collection from Sterkfontein and the hominid collections from across the Cradle of Humankind. She completed an MSc in Quaternary Science at Royal Holloway University of London (2020) and was a 2019-20 Bedford scholar. Her PhD (Environmental Science, 2025) research was in the field of evolutionary biology, and was joint-hosted by the Natural History Museum, London and UCL and funded by the London NERC DTP.

As a Research Associate of the ‘Small Performances’ project, she will explore the variation of the shapes of the Baskerville punch faces and printed characters from Baskerville manuscripts.

She is interested in diverse topics, including morphological evolution, heritage science, vertebrate anatomy (across palaeoanthropology, archaeology, palaeontology, and biology), evolutionary morphology, Palaeolithic archaeology, palaeoenvironmental science, and digital archaeology.

Gerry Leonidas is a Professor of Typography at the University of Reading. He is the programme director for two Masters programmes on typeface design and typography, director of the TDi short courses, and Director for Postgraduate Research Studies. His work focuses on typeface design processes across scripts, with a distinct strand in Greek typeface design and typography. He is interested in typographic education and the development of disciplines of study stemming from fields of practice, and the emergence of paradigms in typeface design. Gerry works regularly on knowledge transfer projects and community outreach, including workshops and seminars in regions where multilingual/multiscript issues are central.

Gerry has experience in managing large projects (including H2020 and KTP projects) and extensive experience in network and community building, initiating actions, and supporting emerging communities of research globally. He has been involved in the organisation of more than 35 events, from a few tens to several hundred attendees, mostly internationally.

Collections and archives, including ephemera and evidence of making, are central to his approach to contextualise and interpret practice, and inform theoretical discussions. He champions the use of qualitative analysis of artefacts in typographic discourse, and in reframing narratives in typography and typeface design.

Robert studied for a first degree and a PhD in Materials Science at the University of Cambridge before completing an MBA at the University of Reading.  He is a CEng and Professional Member of the Institute of Mining Mineralogy and Metallurgy (IOM3).  His early career involved research into the characteristics and manufacture of lithographic printing plates for the Kodak-Polychrome Graphics Company and research into metal forming for the Crown Cork and Seal Company.  In 2000, he began working for the Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office in London, rising to the position of Deputy Warden (Managing Director).  The Assay Office is responsible for the hallmarking of items of precious metal jewellery and silverware.  A key activity involved the manufacture of hallmarking punches using the unique combination of traditional methods and the very latest 3D laser engraving technology.  Hallmarking punch manufacture has many similar characteristics to the way the Baskerville punches were made.  Quantification of surface texture and composition has always been an important thread of research over the years for Robert.  He has always been a keen champion of materials research and over the years has secured many research projects and PhD studentships.  He retired in 2021 but continues to work as a consultant.

Dr Malcolm Dick is Honorary Associate Professor in History at the University of Birmingham having served for many years as Director of the Centre for West Midlands History at the University, until his retirement in December 2023. Between 2002 and 2004, he led the project which created the Revolutionary Players website: www.revolutionaryplayers.org.uk on the history of the West Midlands during the Industrial Revolution. Since then, Malcolm has published books on Joseph Priestley, Erasmus Darwin, Matthew Boulton and James Watt as well as histories of Birmingham and the Black Country. He has collaborated with Caroline Archer-Parré to extend investigation of the significance of John Baskerville, an association which led to the formation of the Baskerville Society, a series of conferences and seminars and the publication of John Baskerville: Art and Industry of the Enlightenment (Liverpool University Press: 2017), edited by Archer-Parré and Dick. Malcolm is interested in Baskerville as an industrialist and local, national and cultural figure and is keen to see what light the Small Performances project throws on the history of metal working in the eighteenth century. Malcolm was awarded an OBE in 2019 for ‘outstanding services to history in the West Midlands’.

Lindsay Greer is Emeritus Professor of Materials Science, Director of Research Relations (Physical Sciences and Technology) at the University of Cambridge.

He received his MA and PhD degrees from Cambridge, and holds Honorary Doctorates from AGH University of Science & Technology, Cracow, Poland, and University ‘St Kliment Ohridski’, Sofia, Bulgaria.  He was a NATO Research Fellow and Assistant Professor of Applied Physics at Harvard University, and has held visiting positions at the CEA and INP Grenoble, Washington University (St Louis), and the Universities of Vienna and Turin.  He is a Foreign PI of the Advanced Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University (Sendai, Japan).  At Cambridge, he served as Head of the School of the Physical Sciences (2016‒2019), and Head of the Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy (2006‒2013).

Prof. Greer’s research interests are metallic glasses and crystal nucleation, grain refinement in casting, and chalcogenide thin films for phase-change data storage.  He has published more than 480 scientific papers, and is the author (with K. F. Kelton) of Nucleation in Condensed Matter:  Applications in Materials and Biology (2010).  He is the recipient of several awards, including the Griffith Medal (2009) of the Institute of Materials (London), the TMS Bruce Chalmers Award (2012), and the Leibniz Medal of IFW (Leibniz-Institut für Festkörper- und Werkstoffforschung), Dresden.

Library where the archive is held. Rosalind graduated from the University of York with a Ph.D. on the writing of the American author Gertrude Stein, concentrating on the literary works arising from her visit to Cambridge in 1914. Graduating from the University of British Columbia with a Masters in Archival Studies, she first worked at King’s College, Cambridge. Since 2010, she has managed the extensive Cambridge University Press archive, which comprises author files, minute books, plans, photographs, accounts and administrative records for both the printing and publishing functions. Founded by Letters Patent dated 1534, authorising Cambridge University to print ‘all manner of books’, the archive charts the rich and varied history of the business in formats from parchment to born-digital data. As Cambridge University Press is a department of Cambridge University, Rosalind reports to the Keeper of University Archives, so she has knowledge of John Baskerville’s relationship with University members in his role as University Printer. Rosalind works frequently in the Press Museum housed within the University Printing House, which holds a display cabinet celebrating the Baskerville Punches alongside a copy of Baskerville’s 1763 folio Bible. As a member of the Small Performances Advisory Board, Rosalind liaises between colleagues at Cambridge University Press & Assessment, as owners of the Baskerville punches, and Cambridge University Library, which holds them in its Historical Printing Room.

Hazel Gardiner is an archaeological and objects conservator with a metals specialism, at the Royal Museums Greenwich. She has held posts at a number of national and local institutions, primarily at the British Museum, and including the Ashmolean Museum, Birmingham Museums Trust, Museum of London and the V&A. She has worked as a freelancer on a broad range of projects focusing on historical and archaeological materials, in the UK and in Egypt and Kuwait. She currently works for Royal Museums Greenwich as Senior Objects Conservator (metals) with a focus on scientific instruments; historical metal, ceramic and glass; and working objects.

Sébastien Morlighem is a teacher and researcher at the École supérieure d’art et de design d’Amiens (FR), as well as coordinator of the international postgraduate course in type design EsadType. He is a graduate of the École supérieure Estienne, the University Paris Diderot, and holds a PhD from the University of Reading, Department of Typography and Graphic Communication (UK). A founder of the Bibliothèque typographique for Ypsilon Éditeur, he has coauthored a few books and written many articles and reviews for magazines such as Étapes, Eye or IDEA. He has also curated several conferences and exhibitions on graphic design, typography, and type design. His latest book is SANS (FR) 1628-1924 (Éditions Non standard/Esad Amiens, 2022). He is currently developing a research project on sign painting and advertising in France, based on an in-depth examination of various visual sources (painting, engraving, photography, etc.). He recently contributed to the catalogue of the exhibition Le Spectacle de la merchandise. Art et commerce (1860-1914), Musée des beaux-arts de Caen.

Lesley Gray is deputy director for digital initiatives at Cambridge University Libraries (CUL). She is responsible for digital development and innovation, digital services and infrastructure, and the digital library and digitisation teams at CUL. She is also the programme senior research officer on CUL’s Digital Preservation Programme, and has responsibility for strategic and operational liaison with the University Information Service. She has more than 25 years’ experience working across the Cambridge libraries network at the Faculty of Education Library and in the University Library on West Road as a systems librarian. During this time, she established the university’s first e-journals services and set up the Journal Coordination Scheme, which centrally manages the acquisition of journal subscriptions across colleges and the university.

The University of Cambridge is one of the world’s leading universities, with a rich history of radical thinking dating back to 1209. Its mission is to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. Cambridge was second in the influential 2023 QS World University Rankings, the highest rated institution in the UK.

With more than 31,000 students from around 100 countries, Birmingham City University [BCU] is a large and diverse place to study, located in the heart of the city. BCU’s mission is to transform the lives of its students by offering a wide range of contemporary, flexible courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level, with practice-based learning and international opportunities built into every stage