About me
Originally from the Philadelphia area, I moved to Belgium in 2006 to do research for my Fulbright-funded dissertation on the Low Countries Beguines in the early modern period. After receiving my PhD in History of Art and Architecture from Brown University I accepted a research postdoc and teaching appointment at the University of Bern in Switzerland. In 2013 I returned to Belgium and then Netherlands for more research, and in 2017 began working at Utrecht University as an Assistant Professor, with promotion to Associate Professor the following year. While I enjoyed teaching, I was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the some of its structural aspects, and in 2022 I left Utrecht to start my editing business. I have recently accepted a research position at the University of Norway that will allow me to balance editing work with collaborative scholarship, and I’m much looking forward to it!
From the beginning of this very international academic career, I worked extensively with non-native English–speaking colleagues, providing translation, editing, peer-review (both formal and informal) and strategic publication support. Over time I also gained a deep understanding of the academic systems in different countries, and in particular the stark contrast between the North American tenure track system and the career paths of European humanities scholars, which are dependent on securing large grants and leading collaborative projects. I very much enjoyed helping my colleagues, both in the US and Europe, translate their knowledge into cogent conference papers, published articles, and successful grant applications. Some early highlights include co-developing a successful grant application for researchers at the Universities of Bern and Cologne to the Swiss National Science Foundation Sinergia program (“The Interior: Art, Space, and Performance,” 1.2 million Swiss Francs, http://www.interior-unibe.ch) and line editing for the volume Knowledge and Discernment in the Early Modern Arts (eds. Christine Göttler and Sven Dupré, Routledge, 2017).
While continuing to help others with their writing, I went on to secure my own grants from the SNSF and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced study, publish my work, and edit the volume Women and Gender in the Early Modern Low Countries (Brill, 2019). I also joined the editorial board of the journal Early Modern Women.
Since trading in teaching for editing on a professional level, I have helped dozens of clients, both native and non-native English speakers. I am deeply committed to helping scholars at all career stages transform their original research into clear, compelling text, whether the aim is to polish off a dissertation, submit a book proposal, meet a journal deadline, revise a manuscript in response to peer review, or secure funding for new research. I provide not only editing, but also strategic advice on choosing publication venues, pitching to presses, and positioning research to funding bodies, My clients’ work has appeared in prestigious journals and leading academic presses, and I have worked on successful grant applications to the US National Science Foundation (SNF), European Research Council (ERC), and Dutch Research Council (NWO).
My publications
As a scholar, I’ve been through the publishing process myself many times. Through these experiences I’ve learned what presses expect and how to avoid common pitfalls. I’ve also made some great contacts. Here’s a list of my work:
MONOGRAPH
Visual Culture at the Court Beguinages: Unconventual Women in the Hapsburg Low Countries 1585-1794. New York: Routledge, 2026. https://www.routledge.com/Unconventual-Women-in-the-Habsburg-Low-Countries-1585-1794-Visual-Culture-at-the-Court-Beguinages/Moran/p/book/9789462986343
EDITED VOLUME
Women and Gender in the Early Modern Low Countries, 1500-1750. Co-edited with Amanda Pipkin. Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions, vol.217. Leiden: Brill, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004391352. Open access: https://brill.com/view/title/11207
JOURNAL ARTICLES (peer reviewed)
“Low Countries Women as Funders of Art and Architecture: Gender, Property Rights, and the Financing of the Flemish Baroque,” Journal of the Early Modern Low Countries 9.1 (2025), 240-263. https://doi.org/10.51750/emlc23024
“Introduction: Perspectives on Women’s Religious Activities in Early Modern Europe and the Americas,” Co-authored with Liise Lehtsalu & Silvia Evangelisti. Journal of Early Modern History 22 (2018), 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1163/15700658-17-00009
“Women at Work: Governance and Financial Administration at the Court Beguinages of the Southern Low Countries in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.” Journal of Early Modern History,22 (2018), 67-95. https://doi.org/10.1163/15700658-17-00010
“Bringing the Counter-Reformation Home: The Domestic Use of Artworks at the Antwerp Beguinage in the Seventeenth Century,” Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 38.3 (2015-16), 144-158. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26382527
“‘The Right Hand of Pictura’s Perfection’: Cornelis de Bie’s Het Gulden Cabinet and Antwerp Painting around 1660,” Netherlands Yearbook for Art History (NKJ) 64 (2014), 370-399. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43884406
“Of Locked Doors and Open Windows: Architectural Strategies at the Court Beguinages in the Seventeenth Century,” Chicago Art Journal 20 (2010): 2-27.
SPECIAL JOURNAL ISSUE (as editor)
Journal of Early Modern History Volume 22, Issue 1-2 (March 2018): Perspectives On Women’s Religious Activities, coordinated and edited with Silvia Evangelisti and Liise Lehtsalu. https://brill.com/view/journals/jemh/22/1-2/jemh.22.issue-1-2.xml
BOOK CHAPTERS
“Reform and Resistance in the 1540s, or How the Diest Beguines Tried to Get Rid of Their Priest,” in Women and Religion: Dissenters, Workers, Writers in the Early Modern European Context (1500-1700), eds. Francesco Quatrini and Katherine O’Donnell. London: Bloomsbury, 2026, 39-66.
“Het Antwerpse begijnhof,” in Begeesterde vrouwen. Een rijke religieuze geschiedenis (Honderd Jaar Ruusbroecgenootschap, 2), eds. Lieke Smits, Tine van Osselaer, John Arblaster, and Daniël Ermens. Leuven: Peeters, 2025, 73-91. https://www.peeters-leuven.be/detail.php?search_key=9789042957237&series_number_str=3&lang=en
“Court Beguinage Mistresses as Art Curators,” in Women Who Made a Difference in the Arts in the Early Modern Low Countries. Essays in Honour of Katlijne Van der Stighelen, eds. Lieke Van Deinsen, Bert Schepers, Marjan Sterckx, Hans Vlieghe, Bert Watteeuw. Turnhout: Brepols, 2024, 314-323. https://www.brepols.net/products/IS-9782503613055-1
“Women and Artistic Knowledge in the Family: Mechelen Beguinage Grand Mistress Clara Eugenia Brueghel,” in Brueghel: The Family Reunion, ed. Nadia Groeneveld-Baadj. ’s-Hertogenbosch: WBooks, 2023, 107-113. https://wbooks.com/winkel/deutsch-english/brueghel-family-reunion/
“Introduction,” co-authored with Amanda Pipkin, in Women and Gender in the Early Modern Low Countries, 1500-1750, eds. Sarah Joan Moran and Amanda Pipkin, eds. Women and Gender in the Early Modern Low Countries, 1500-1750. Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions, vol.217. Leiden: Brill, 2019, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004391352_002. Open access: https://brill.com/view/title/11207
“Resurrecting the ‘Spiritual Daughters’: The Houtappel Chapel and Women’s Patronage of Jesuit Building Programs in the Spanish Netherlands,” in Sarah Joan Moran and Amanda Pipkin, eds. Women and Gender in the Early Modern Low Countries, 1500-1750. Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions, vol.217. Leiden: Brill, 2019, 266-322. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004391352_010. Open access: https://brill.com/view/title/11207
“A cui ne fece dono: Art, Exchange, and Affective Prayer in Anthony van Dyck’s Lamentation for the Antwerp Beguines,” in Sensing the Divine: Religion and the Senses in Early Modern Europe, eds. Christine Göttler and Wietse de Boer. Leiden: Brill, 2013. 219-256. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004236653_010
“Guarino Guarini’s Architecture in Print,” in The Theater That Was Rome: Sixteenth- to Eighteenth-Century Views and Maps, ed. Evelyn Lincoln. Providence: RISD Press, 2005.