A former tech worker employed by the likes of Google, Microsoft and Meta has found a new passion, literally peeling away the layers of medieval books to uncover their hidden secrets.
“Someone sat at their table for hours and hours delicately writing each letter, and here we are hundreds of years later still looking at what they wrote,” said fourth-year classical studies student Stephanie Leith.
I got to look at manuscripts no one has seen for four to five hundred years– Stephanie Leith
Prior to pursuing a life in academia, Leith was a contractor for several years working for Silicon Valley giants at the cutting edge of technology. However, the desire to focus on a life of research was a lifelong goal for her, and she traded web pages for the real thing. She now assists with research in the Archives and Special Collections of the DB Weldon Library at Western University.