Centre for History and Economics

Colorful clouds and blue sky with water reflection of an island hosting a Samanea saman (rain tree) and other trees, at sunrise, in Don Det, Si Phan Don, Laos. Š Basile Morin

Kirstie is facing the camera, smiling. She has chest-length brown hair rectangular glasses and white skin. There is a grey background. She is wearing a small silver necklace and red earrings. Her dress has a floral pattern with red, pink, green and black designs.

kirstie stage

Christ’s College
Cambridge CB2 1RF

kln31@cam.ac.uk

Kirstie is undertaking a PhD in history at Christ’s College, supervised by Professor Lucy Delap and Jonathan Pledge. Her collaborative doctoral project between the University of Cambridge and the British Library is provisionally entitled ‘Labour and Livelihoods of Disabled People, 1970-2015’. This project will use archives, documentary research and oral history to reconstruct the workplace experiences of disabled people. Drawing on rich collections from the Association for Disabled Professionals, as well as other disabled-led groups, this research will investigate the mechanisms through which disabled people expressed, understood, and engaged with important issues within their social and professional lives.

Kirstie was the recipient of the Wellcome Trust Studentship for an MA in the History of Medicine at the University of Warwick. Her MA dissertation, co-supervised by Professor Mathew Thomson and Dr Claire Shaw, tracked the development of the National Union of the Deaf (f.1976), a Deaf-led pressure group of great significance. Previously, she received a BA First-Class degree in History and Politics from Queen Mary, University of London. Her undergraduate research examined disability activism in twentieth-century Britain, notably the Block Telethon Protests of 1990 and 1992, a project which centred around the oral histories of campaigners.

Outside of academia, Kirstie has been a Parliamentary Researcher, selected as a UN Delegate for the Commission on the Status of Women, and worked closely with NGOs to investigate the intersection between gender and disability. In 2022, she co-founded the UK Disability History and Heritage Hub.