I read History at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, followed by an MSc in Landscape and Heritage at Queen’s University Belfast. After cataloguing the collection of a small country house in Northern Ireland, I moved to Cornwall to undertake an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award in Historical Geography at the University of Exeter and PK Porthcurno: Museum of Global Communication. My PhD, Empire, Modernity and Design: Visual Culture and Cable & Wireless’ Corporate Identities, 1924–1955, brought together many of my interests—visual culture, graphic design, typography, exhibitions, imperial history, infrastructure, and maps.
I’m particularly interested in how objects and images can evoke the past and help us tell stories in a more visceral and grounded way. As an undergraduate, I volunteered in the Department of Coins and Medals at the Fitzwilliam Museum, and in my final year I held the Hamish Leslie Melville Internship in the Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum. After completing my PhD, I worked at PK Porthcurno as Digitisation Officer and later Collections Manager. I’m currently Curator of Exhibitions and Special Projects at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall.
Education
University of Exeter – PhD Historical Geography (2011-2014)
Thesis: Empire, Modernity and Design: Visual Culture and Cable & Wireless’ Corporate Identities, 1924-1955
Queens’s University Belfast – MSc Landscape, Heritage and Environment (2009-10)
Dissertation: Temporal and Spatial Narratives of the Ulster-American Folk Park (Distinction)
Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge – BA (Hons) History (2006-9)
Dissertation: Exhibiting the Liberty Style, 1875-1917
Publications
Lee, Jenny R. ‘Empire, Incorporated: The Corporations That Built British Colonialism, Philip J. Stern, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA (2023), 408 Pages, £29.95 Hardback’. Journal of Historical Geography 88 (1 June 2025): 195–96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2025.04.004.
Scott, Michael James, Alcwyn Parker, Edward J. Powley, Rob Saunders, Jenny R. Lee, Phoebe Herring, Douglas Brown, and Tanya Krzywinska. ‘Towards an Interaction Blueprint for Mixed Reality Experiences in GLAM Spaces: The Augmented Telegrapher at Porthcurno Museum’. BCS Learning & Development, 2018. https://doi.org/10.14236/ewic/HCI2018.135.
Conference Papers and Lectures
‘The use of para-numismatic items within a maritime context and collections’, Early Career Lecture, Royal Numismatic Society, 23rd March 2023. (Peer Reviewed)
‘On the Design of Collaborative Mixed-Reality Experiences for GLAM Spaces: The Case of the Augmented Telegrapher for Porthcurno Museum.’ Video Games and Museums: Educational Digital Tools forthe Participatory GLAM Space, University of Helsinki, Finland, 6-7 May, 2018. (Peer Reviewed)
‘Visual culture in the making of Cable & Wireless’ Corporate Identity’, RGS-IBG Annual Conference, Royal Geographical Society, London,28th August, 2014. (Peer Reviewed)
‘Mapping imperial cables’ Departmental Seminar, University of Exeter, 1st May, 2013.
‘Cable maps and the British Empire’, Symposium, Porthcurno Telegraph Museum, 25th September, 2013
‘Exhibitions, modernisms and everyday spectacle’, Roundtable at Modernist Studies Association Conference 15, University of Sussex, 1st September, 2013 (Peer Reviewed – Invited)
‘Communicating communication’, Porthcurno Symposium, Porthcurno Telegraph Museum, 19th September, 2012
‘Visual communication in the making of Cable & Wireless’ corporate identity’, International Conference of Historical Geography, Charles University, Prague, 7th August, 2012 (Peer Reviewed)
‘Visual culture in the making of Cable & Wireless’ Corporate Identity’, Departmental Seminar Programme, University of Exeter, 2nd February, 2012
‘Visual culture in the making of Cable & Wireless’ corporate identity, Porthcurno Symposium, Telegraph Museum Porthcurno, 19th September, 2011
Employment
National Maritime Museum Cornwall
Curator (Exhibitions and Special Projects)
Acting Curator
Assistant Curator
Creative Kernow
Digital Coach (Museums and Public Galleries)
Cornwall Museums Partnership
Digital Co-ordinator
PK Porthcurno: Museum of Global Communications
Collections Manager
Digitisation Officer
CDA Doctoral Researcher
University of Exeter
Lecturer – Geography Department (Environment and Empire)
Lead Tutor – History Department (World History, Historiography)
Sentry Hill Historic House
Documentation Assistant
British Museum
Hamish Leslie Melville Internship – Department of Coins and Medals
Dr Jenny R Lee 