Dr Alecia Simmonds is an inter-disciplinary scholar in law and history. She has published in national and international journals on the relationship between imperialism and the law of nations in the long eighteenth century in an effort to understand the imperial/colonial foundations of international law. Her current postdoctoral research at UTS focuses on the legal regulation of intimacy in the Australasian Colonies, tracing the development of what we now call 'family law'. Through combining a combination of archival research focusing on litigation, legal doctrinal analysis and ‘history from below’ this project explores how the intimate lives of women and men shaped and were shaped by law.