Fleur is a PhD candidate in the School of History, College of Arts and Social Sciences undertaking the research project ‘Women of the British Portocracy: Port Wine Dinastias, Family and Transcultural Lives 1678-1807'

Port is a fortified wine produced in the Douro Valley in northern Portugal. First shipped to England in 1678, port swiftly became the ‘Englishman’s wine.’ British merchants migrated to Porto, living transnationally to establish and run businesses as producers and shippers. This British community, colloquially known as the ‘Portocracy,’ endures today three centuries later. The current port wine history documents the British men, but what of their wives, daughters and sisters?

On 24 January 2018, Fleur was awarded the National Council of Women (NSW) Australian History Award in recognition of a piece of research additional to her PhD Research looking into women exhibitors of Australian colonial wine at international and intercolonial exhibitions of the nineteenth century. As a wine historian she is focusing on highlighting women's contributions to the wine industry hoping their stories inspire more women today to enter the trade.

Prior to commencing her post-graduate research, Fleur worked for nearly a decade in the field of technology commercialisation, translating research outputs into new products and services. Most recently she managed the Australian multi-site Phase 1 trial for safety and tolerability of the novel immunomodulatory agent Pixatimod (PG545) by IV administration in patients with advanced cancer. Pixatimod is now in Phase 1b clinical trials where it is being tested in combination with Bristol-Myers Squibb's checkpoint inhibitor Nivolumab (Opdivo) in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, microsatellite stable metastatic colorectal cancer or advanced cancer. The drug is also now in pre-clinical development as an anti-viral drug against COVID-19 following successful in vitro live virus infectivity studies which demonstrated that it binds directly to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein S1 receptor binding domain, altering its conformation and leading to effective inhibition of viral infectivity.

She previously held senior executive positions in oncology drug development company Progen Pharmaceuticals Ltd (Brisbane, Australia) biotechnology company Immune Solutions Ltd (Dunedin, New Zealand) and the University of Otago's commercialisation office Otago Innovation Ltd (Dunedin, New Zealand).

Fleur holds a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Otago in New Zealand. She has over ten years' post admission experience as a solicitor in Australia and New Zealand. Complimenting her wine history research, Fleur holds the wine industry qualification of the Wine and Spirits Education (WSET) Level 3 Advanced Certificate.