From Student to Museum Professional: My Timeline 🕰️

Growing up in Derbyshire near Wollaton Hall, I visited regularly as a child — completely fascinated by the taxidermy displays and natural history collections. Those visits were the spark that led me toward a career in museums and heritage.

During my studies at the University of Gloucestershire, I explored how history and interpretation shape public understanding. One of my most formative experiences came during a second-year module, when I worked with the Gloucester Folk Museum on the Threads: Belonging and Unbelonging exhibition. I researched the local textile trade, developed accessible interpretation materials, and learned how academic work can directly inform curatorial practice.

Also during university, I deepened my hands-on experience through a placement at Holst Victorian House, where I digitised over a hundred paper artefacts relating to Gustav Holst. This role taught me the importance of careful documentation and cataloguing — small details that preserve the bigger story.

After university I started volunteering with the Poetry Archive. My work with them further strengthened my administrative, digital archiving, and data management skills. I catalogued 571 poets for the Poetry of South Asia project, creating a cross-referenced system that supported both archival organisation and social media planning. This project was where I truly saw how creative heritage and digital systems can intersect.

Now, as an events volunteer with Sheffield Museums Trust and an archive volunteer with the Yorkshire Natural History Museum, I continue to build on that foundation — contributing to exhibitions, collections care, and accessibility initiatives. From my early fascination with natural history to working across archives and curatorial projects, every experience has brought me closer to becoming a museum professional.

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✨ Learn more about my work and aspirations here: My Portfolio