Katherine Thomson holds a BA with Honours in Ancient History from the Australian National University, and an MPhil in Economic and Social History from the University of Oxford. Her interests centre on the development of fiscal and monetary institutions in the ancient world. Her goal at ISAW is to better understand the drivers of state currency manipulation in pre-modern economies.
Her PhD research, Currency Conventions and Public Trust in the Early and High Roman Empire, presents an interdisciplinary study that combines economic and historical theory with numismatic, archaeological, and literary evidence to shed light on the ways that Romans spoke about and interacted with their currency and economy, tracing the evolution of Roman currency confidence in the first two centuries CE.