Spotlight on... Christina Anderson

What is your role and what does it involve?

I am one of UCL’s newest UKRI Future Leaders Fellows, of which there are currently over forty across the University. It is difficult to implement solutions to global challenges like climate change because people don’t see how these relate to their personal circumstances, so I am leading historical research to show how we are all interconnected and all have a stake in solving these problems. My project, ‘Connecting Histories, Connecting Heritage: Early Modern Cities and Their Afterlives’, focuses on transnational heritage, offering a framework for seeing ourselves as global citizens through the historical connections to other places embedded in the urban landscapes of the cities we call ‘home’. The nine members of the project team will create a range of public-facing digital outputs, with case studies including Antwerp, Accra and Cartagena de Indias.

How long have you been at UCL and what was your previous role?

I have led both commercial and academic research projects throughout my career. In 2018, I began an unplanned career break for family reasons, and held an honorary senior research associateship at UCL during that period. Then, in 2022, I accepted a Principal Research Fellowship, a position supported by the Daphne Jackson Trust and specifically aimed at those re-entering research after a career break. My Daphne Jackson project examined merchant networks between early modern Antwerp and various cities in Italy using digital humanities tools.

What working achievement or initiative are you most proud of?

I treasure those occasions when my research touches a community or an individual outside academia. For example, I was asked to speak to the local cultural society on the lesser-known island of Cavallino in the Venetian lagoon because the protagonist of my first book, The Flemish Merchant of Venice, had built the canal and custom house there in the early seventeenth century.

Tell us about a project you are working on now which is top of your to-do list

One of my UKRI project outputs is a virtual reality sequence. It will give visitors a visceral experience of simultaneously being in a sixteenth-century Antwerp palace and the Brazilian sugar plantation possessed by the palace’s owner, allowing the public to experience virtually the various ways in which the history of each place is intrinsically connected to that of the other. The sequence will be co-created with community stakeholders in Belgium and Brazil and I am currently working with partners in both countries to gather their input to the creative process.

What is your favourite album, film and novel?

Impossible to choose! But, among my favourites are Diva by Annie Lennox, The Muppet Christmas Carol (watched, of course, with my daughter), and Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald.

What is your favourite joke (pre-watershed)?

Why were the brooms late for school? They overswept.

Who would be your dream dinner guests?

Cecilia Bartoli, Joan Didion, Yayoi Kusama, Dolly Parton, Gloria Steinem and Golda Rosheuvel, with Yotam Ottolenghi to cook for us so I could enjoy the company.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Life is short: there is no better time to begin something than the present.

What would it surprise people to know about you?

I began my university career studying biology and even worked as a research assistant in an evolutionary biology lab my first year as an undergraduate. I ran experiments on hydractinia colonies growing on hermit crab shells. 

What is your favourite place?

Again, impossible to choose! I grew up surrounded by the woods of northern Wisconsin in the US, so anywhere where I can be in nature, quiet and kept company (or surprised) by wildlife feels like home.