Vanessa completed her doctoral studies at the University College London in 2023.
Her project titled ‘Playful Experiments and Comic Deceptions: A Cultural History of Magic Tricks in Late Medieval Europe’ explored the concept and category of illusionist magic and magic tricks in late medieval Europe. Using a principal source base of 100 late medieval manuscript recipe collections, her research explored the medieval understanding and appreciation of magic tricks, particularly sleight-of-hand and chemical tricks, preserved in medieval manuscript recipe collections as a form of domestic play and popular science, meaning a general rather than specialist engagement with science and scientific principles, in the Middle Ages.
More broadly, Vanessa is interested in the transmission of practical literature, and especially recipes, in the late Middle Ages including their transmission, or lack therefore, into print.