Speaker profile

Summary

I’m Senior Curator of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich and I’m passionate about uncovering the hidden stories of this unique location and other historic observatories.

Full biography

Louise has worked in museums associated with the history of astronomy for over twenty years.

She originally studied Physics with Astrophysics at the University of Leicester but got the history bug after working at the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum in 2002. She continued her studies in the history of science at Imperial College London and has since worked at the Science Museum and British Museum before joining Royal Museums Greenwich in 2013.

Louise has worked on exhibitions such as Cosmos and Culture (Science Museum, 2009), Observatory Life (Royal Observatory, 2016), The Moon (National Maritime Museum, 2019) and she's now developing content for the new galleries as part of the Royal Observatory's transformation project, First Light, scheduled to open in 2028.

Her research interests include natural timekeeping devices such as astrolabes, sundials and nocturnals, plus she's fascinated by the exchange of people, ideas and instruments among historic observatories during their active use. More recently, Louise has investigated the story of the 'lady computers', the first women to work as professional astronomers at Greenwich who were hired to contribute to the photographic Carte du Ciel ('Map of the Sky') project in the 1890s.

Affiliations