Annual General Meeting (AGM) 2025

Dr Kathleen Sheppard is Professor in the History and Political Science department at Missouri S&T in Rolla, Missouri. She earned her MA in Egyptian Archaeology at University College London in 2002, and an MA and PhD in History of Science from the University of Oklahoma in 2006 and 2010, respectively. She has spent her whole career telling the stories of women in Egyptology. Her first book was a scientific biography of Margaret Alice Murray, The Life of Margaret Alice Murray: A Woman’s Work in Archaeology (2013). Throughout the research for that and her second book, My Dear Miss Ransom…: Letters Between Caroline Ransom Williams and James Henry Breasted, 1898-1935 (2018), she found so many of Egyptology’s missing women in archives spread all over the world. She wanted to tell those stories, but her third monograph, Tea on the Terrace: Hotels and Egyptologists’ Social Networks, 1885-1925 (2022) focused on social and professional networking among Egyptologists in European-run Egyptian hotels. Her most recent book, Women in the Valley of the Kings: The Untold Story of Women Egyptologists in the Gilded Age (2024) is a grand retelling of the history of Egyptology through the work that women did. These are the women whose lives and work built the discipline of Western Egyptology. Her forthcoming work includes a four-volume set of primary sources in Egyptology (Routledge) and a chapter about Archibald Sayce’s life on his dahabeah Ištar. She is also working on Kate Bradbury’s travel journal from her US trip from 1889-1890, with Amelia Edwards.

At Missouri S&T, where she has been on faculty since 2011, she teaches undergraduate general survey courses. In her History of Science courses, sadly, she only talks about Egyptology for one lecture. She is also the Director of the Research Center for Science, Technology, and Society.

Robert Lee is a real estate lawyer at London international law firm DACBeachcroft where he is a partner involved in major housing regeneration projects. Robert has worked in the legal sector for some 40 years and lives in London and North Devon with his wife Helen and their four children.

Robert has a keen interest in ancient Egypt which was sparked when he took his late father (who did his national service in Port Said and Cairo) for a holiday to Egypt some 20 years ago. This led Robert to read into the subject and to join the Egypt Exploration Society. Robert is a keen champion of the EES and previously served as a Trustee between 2010 and 2016 Robert has subsequently visited Egypt on many occasions.

In addition to an interest in both ancient and modern history Robert is a keen collector of antique silver particularly of the Georgian period.

Sue Preston is a Chartered Accountant and a Chartered Tax Adviser. She worked in the oil industry for a number of years before taking a career break and moving to the Far East. Since her return she worked for a number of not for profits and was formerly the Finance Director of a grant giving trust.

Sue has wide experience of not for profit accounts and a particular interest in governance. She has also had a keen interest in Egyptology and studied at Birkbeck College.

Dr Abeer Eladany graduated from the Faculty of Archaeology, Cairo University, and then gained a postgraduate diploma and Pre-MSc degree from the Faculty of Tourism, Helwan University. She worked at the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, for more than 10 years before travelling to Italy to study conservation of ceramics in Florence. She then joined the KNH Centre, University of Manchester, to study Biomedical and Forensic Studies in Egyptology where she achieved her MSc and PhD. In 2015, Abeer gained an MLitt in Museum Studies from the University of Aberdeen. In her current role as a curatorial assistant at the University of Aberdeen’s Museums and Special Collections, she promotes wider access to the museum collections. Abeer’s research interests are mainly related to human remains, the history of Egyptology, and Museology (particularly Ethics and Repatriation), and she has joined archaeological excavations in Egypt and in Scotland.

Abeer is an active volunteer for a wide range of charities ranging from community projects to heritage groups in the UK and is currently a Trustee for SHMU, a community media organisation and one of the core cultural organisations in Aberdeen. She is also a director on the Board of Trustees of Soundfestival a new music incubator based in north-east Scotland encouraging new music creation and discovery.

Abeer is a member of the Slavery, Empire and Scottish Museums steering group that has recently published recommendations following a large public consultation regarding how Scotland’s existing and future museum collections and spaces can better recognise and represent a more accurate portrayal of Scotland’s colonial and slavery history.

Dr Jennifer Cromwell is Reader in Ancient History at Manchester Metropolitan University. She studied Egyptology at the University of Liverpool for her BA, MA, and PhD (focussing on Coptic legal documents from western Thebes in the 8th century CE), and before joining MMU in 2018 she held research positions at the University of Oxford, Macquarie University (Sydney), the University of Copenhagen, as well as the British Museum. Her research focusses on social and economic life in Egypt during the late 6th to 8th centuries CE; the study of Coptic papyri; and the reception of ancient Egypt in modern analogue and digital games. From 2021–23 she was the principal investigator on a UK Research Institute-funded project, ‘Ancient History, Contemporary Belonging’ (with sociologist Dr Caitlin Nunn), which worked with Manchester Museum, Sheba Arts, and migrant-background youth researchers (aged 16–24) in Greater Manchester to creatively explore the forced migration of ancient historical objects and what it means to ‘belong’.