I'm a relative newcomer to Texas and TCU, having left Hawaii in 1993 after a thirteen year residence. I brought my rice cooker with me, I already liked okra, and my residual East Tennessee accent has risen to the challenge -- so it all seems to be working out. The history department at TCU has provided a wonderful opportunity to spend more of my time working in British history, which has been my first love since undergraduate school at the University of Tennessee. My master's work (University of Wisconsin-Madison), my Ph.D. research (University of Hawaii-Manoa) and everything I've pursued since have all involved British studies, particularly the British Empire in the Pacific. My current research focuses on the British governors of colonial Fiji. Other actors in empire of particular interest to me are missionaries and naturalists. I am also currently serving as the history department's undergraduate adviser. My family and I have lived in Wisconsin, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, Hawaii, and Virginia, largely as a consequence of my husband's work as a botanist. It's perhaps not totally surprising that my older daughter, Rebecca, is a geographer and my younger daughter, Rachel, is a graduate student in ecology. The four cats are simply themselves.