Rebecca Main

Rebecca Main is a PhD Researcher at the University of Stirling, affiliated with the History, Heritage, and Politics Division within the Faculty of Arts & Humanities. She currently serves as a Research Assistant on the Environments of Change project at the University of Waterloo and as a PGT Programme Tutor. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on contextualizing palaeoscientific data to understand the emergence and spread of Yersinia pestis in Neolithic and Bronze Age Eurasia, integrating evolutionary genetics, environmental science, and historical analysis.

Rebecca holds a BA with Honours in History (2019) and an MRes in Historical Research (2020), both from the University of Stirling. Her work develops the 'historical science' methodology to analyze plague outbreaks in relation to biological, environmental, and social changes. Research interests include ancient diseases, prehistoric demography, migration patterns, and interdisciplinary approaches to historical inquiry.

She has secured multiple grants, including annual Postgraduate Funding Awards from the Stirlingshire Educational Trust, McGlashan Charitable Trust, Scottish International Education Trust, and Sir Richard Stapley Educational Trust. In 2020, she received the Research Based Learning Prize for her MRes dissertation. Rebecca has presented widely, including at the Biological and Environmental Sciences Divisional Seminar, University of St Andrews Conference on Interdisciplinary Studies, and Oslo Metropolitan University's PANSOC Webinar Series.

Professional development includes the Postgraduate Plus+ Programme (ILM certificate) and participation in the Access To: Forensic and Analytical Science course at Robert Gordon University. Her research spans prehistoric Eurasia, emphasizing the intersection of scientific and historical methodologies to uncover patterns in disease transmission and human-environment interactions.