Jessica’s main interests lie in the history of modern Europe, the world wars and post-war reconstruction, internationalism, international organisations and networks, humanitarianism, science and expertise, and refugees, migration and displacement.
She is currently working on a history of the work and impact of a short-lived but highly influential international body, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), whose activities in Europe dominated in the stretches of war-torn Europe that became the frontline of the emerging Cold War.
She is Director of the Centre for the Study of Internationalism at Birkbeck. Since 2013, she has been co-editor of the journal Contemporary European History, which covers the history of Eastern and Western Europe, including Britain, from 1918 to the present.