Welcome to Dr Iona McCleery as the new Director of the Institute for Medieval Studies

Dr McCleery follows in the footsteps of Dr Fozia Bora as Director.

Dr McCleery is a historian of health, food, and healing miracles. Her work focuses on Portugal and its early empire, especially West Africa and Atlantic archipelagos such as Cape Verde and Madeira. She is currently working on a book on food, human health, plants and animals in fifteenth century West Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. Dr McCleery frequently incorporates topics relating to West Africa in her teaching, and she believes that her ‘global research-led teaching places me in an excellent position to globalise medieval studies. I am very committed to decolonizing the curriculum and thinking critically about the concept of the Middle Ages.’

Dr McCleery applied for the post because ‘the Institute is a really vibrant, joyful place to do research with lots of things going on. Medieval Studies is more important to the modern world than it ever was; the task now is to make sure everyone knows that, as the Middle Ages has something to say that we can learn from! It will be great to be working even more closely with an excellent group of inter-disciplinary colleagues and students over the next few years.’

Dr McCleery has many goals for her time as Director. She would like to ‘build on the IMS’s reputation for interdisciplinary teaching and make much more visible its research strengths in a very wide range of subjects and languages at global level.’ She aims to increase public engagement and outreach activities, and hopes to strengthen and develop partnerships, old and new, locally and internationally.