Advisor: Dr. Edwards

Pronouns:  she/her

Education: BA History (Clemson University Honors, 2023)

Bio:

Lauren is a Columbia, SC native. Her research interests include witchcraft and magic in early modern England, magic and the laws banning and regulating it, and the wider field of magic and folklore in early modern Europe. 

As an undergraduate senior, Lauren completed her Departmental Honors thesis, “These Teates are Suckled: The Evidentiary Links Between Devil’s Marks and Familiars in Early Modern English Witch Trials.” The research within analyzed the relationship between familiars, a witch’s demon, and devil’s marks, the location where the familiars sucked their witch’s blood. Additionally, Lauren’s research questioned the possibility that the development of devil’s marks as a point of physical and provable evidence in witch trials may have indicated a shift from hearsay to physical evidence in wider trial procedures. Lauren was also selected to publish a shortened version of her thesis in the undergraduate student journal Aurantiaco.

In the spring of 2023, Lauren was awarded the Silver Bowl Award sponsored by the Daughters of the American Colonists. Each spring, the Clemson History Department selects a student that they feel has displayed excellence in various disciplines within the humanities, not just history.