Elaine McGirr joined Royal Holloway in 2004 as a lecturer in English and Drama.

Dr McGirr, a native of Chicago, graduated top of her class with a B.A. in English and History from the University of Rochester in New York in 1994. With funding from the Olin foundation, among other fellowships and prizes, she studied at Washington University in St. Louis (USA) where she completed a Ph.D. in Restoration and eighteenth-century literature in 2002. She taught in the English and History departments at Washington University in St. Louis and was a visiting lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire in 2003-4.