Dr Lizzie Collingham

Lizzie Collingham is a Bye-Fellow of Jesus College where she runs the undergraduate writing skills programme.

Academic interests

Lizzie Collingham’s academic interests include:

• Writing
• The global history of food. 

Degrees obtained

• PhD, Cantab.
• MA, University of York.
• BA, University of Sussex.

Awards and prizes

• The Guild of Food Writers Food Book Award 2018 for The Hungry Empire: How Britain’s Quest for Food Shaped the Modern World.

Biography

I am an independent historian who uses food to link the minutiae of daily life to the broad sweep of historical processes.

I completed a PhD on the British body in India (1800-1947) at the University of Cambridge, taught History at the University of Warwick, and was then a Junior Research Fellow at Jesus College before becoming an independent historian.

I worked on a project commissioned by the Indian president to make the presidential palace (formerly the Viceregal Lodge) more accessible to the Indian public and as a lecturer for Martin Randall Travel on gastronomic tours of Kerala.

I have also held positions as the Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at the University of East Anglia and a variety of Cambridge Colleges and University departments.

I am currently writing a food history of the twentieth century. 

Other interests

Reading fiction and memoir, the history of Kerala, hiking.