Joanna Story studied History and Archaeology at Durham University and is a professor of Early Medieval History at the University of Leicester where she has worked since 1996. She specialises in the period c. AD 600-900, and in the material culture of the written word in manuscript and epigraphic form. Her research and publications are characterised by a highly interdisciplinary approach to evidence, combining data derived from text, images, and physical remains surviving from the early medieval European past and deploying traditional historical techniques alongside methods used in archaeology and physical sciences.