I am a cultural historian of medieval and early modern Europe with broad research interests in the history of medicine and science, the history of gender and the body, and the history of material texts. I am Assistant Professor of Early Modern European History at TCU, where I teach survey courses on the history of early modern Europe from the Black Death to the French Revolution, and upper level seminars on the history of science and communications technologies in history. You can view syllabi and learn more about these courses here.

My first book, Reading Practice: The Pursuit of Natural Knowledge from Manuscript to Print (University of Chicago Press, 2024) was awarded the 2025 John Ben Snow Prize from the North American Council on British Studies for best book in any field of British Studies, pre-1800, and has been shortlisted for the 2026 William H. Welch Medal from the American Association for the History of Medicine, awarded to a book of outstanding scholarly merit in the history of medicine. Read more about the book (or listen to podcast interviews) here.

In addition to writing academic books and articles, I also co-edit The Recipes Project, a quarterly online publication devoted to recipe studies of all kinds.

Contact

Email: m.reynolds1(at)tcu.edu
Bluesky: @melkatrey.bsky.social
GitHub: melissabreynolds