Dr. Olivia Robinson
Research. History. Data.
New narratives of women past
Historical research
Quantitative meets qualitative research; big data and micro-history. History from below. Migrants, everyday life, late nineteenth century society, interwar Britain, the domestic service sector, occupational change. And always with a focus on women’s lived experiences and perspectives.
Academic projects
From building historical linked datasets to teaching the data science behind family history or running academic conferences. Equally happy being buried deep in python script-writing as being submerged in the archives poring over fragile records. Is AI and the datafication of history the future of the past?
Public engagement
Always open to finding creative ways of sharing research in and outside academia. TV presenting, radio interviews, school resources, museum talks, professional research services, blogs, podcasts and more. For genealogical research services, please visit my Ancestories website at www.ancestories.co.uk.
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About
Dr Robinson is a British historian working at the intersection of migration, social, economic and demographic history and historical geography. Her research to date has focused on history from below, tracing the lives and experiences of women migrants and working-class people.
She has lectured and published on the travelling ayahs of South Asia and church leisure in working class Britain. She is always interested in sharing history through media opportunities and also carries out selected research projects for private clients.
She holds a research post on the Link-Lives project at the Danish National Archives and University of Copenhagen which links historical sources using manual and computing techniques to generate millions of life-courses in the period 1787-1968. In that capacity she writes on historical linking methodologies and the transformation of historical records into data.
From the University of Oxford she has a doctorate in History, an MSc in English Local History and an MPhil in Modern Chinese Studies, and is an Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
Dr. Olivia Robinson 