Close
Kelly Freeman
I graduated from the University of Dundee with a BSc (Hons) in Forensic Anthropology and an MSc in Human Identification. Following my studies in Dundee, I moved to London and graduated from University College London with an MA in the History of Art. I am now in the third year of my PhD at UCL. Drawing from my multidisciplinary background, which includes Anatomy, Osteology, Anthropology and Art History, my doctoral research focuses on the intriguingly dynamic relationship between the materials and metaphors of iron and bone in nineteenth-century Britain and France, as presented in the iron 'skeleton' architecture of certain museums of natural history and the skeletal specimens housed within them. I am also a teaching assistant within UCL's History of Art Department and the assistant coordinator of ReSkIN (Research Skills Intercollegiate Network) with the University of London.
Thesis
Skeletons of Iron & Bone: Architecture and Display in the Nineteenth-century Museum of Natural History
This research addresses the relationship between the natural sciences, material metaphors and architecture, a triad made visible within nineteenth-century sites of exposition.
Funding/Awards
UCL Provost Teaching Studentship in the Humanities (2014 -16)
Stones of Venice Research Grant, Lancaster University (2015)
University of Dundee Music and Choral Scholarship (2007- 09)
Appointments
Jan 2014 - date: University College London - Postgraduate Teaching Assistant, History of Art Department (Spring term 2014: Foundation Course (HART1305); Spring term 2015: Gateway Course (HART2010), Autumn & Spring term 2015 -16: Core Course (HART1001)).
Dec 2014 - date: University of London/ University College London - Assistant Coordinator for ReSkIN (Research Skills Intercollegiate Network)
Presentations/Public Lectures
2013, November - 4th International Illustration Research Symposium (Oxford): Science, Imagination and the Illustration of Knowledge. Paper titled Skeletopoeia: Putting the 'art' into 'articulation'.
2010, September - Lecture titled Face of Turner: Authentication of portrait by Cornelius Varley. Paper presented to the Independent Turner Society at the Warburg Institute, London.
Media
2010, August - The Guardian: Portrait is JMW Turner as a young man - Hi-tech scan ends two centuries of dispute over whether drawing is a rare image of JMW Turner in his prime.
2010, August - Telegraph: Masters student uses death mask to identify portrait of JMW Turner.
2006, April - BBC Radio Scotland: University of Dundee talks about Forensic
Anthropology.
2004, April - BBC Radio Scotland: New course for students in Forensic Anthropology.
Other
2014 - 2015: Board Member and Reader for Object (UCL History of Art Department's annual postgraduate journal).
Research Themes
Art, Design & Architecture
Language, Linguistics & Literature
Materials