Diane Purkiss is Fellow and Tutor of English at Keble College, Oxford. She specialises in Renaissance and women's literature, witchcraft and the English Civil War.Purkiss was born in Sydney, Australia, and was educated at Roseville College, Our Lady of the Rosary Convent, and Stuartholme School. She received a BA with first class Honours from the University of Queensland and D.Phil. from Merton College, Oxford. She became Lecturer in English at the University of East Anglia in 1991, and Lecturer in English at the University of Reading in 1993. In 1998 she became Professor of English at Exeter University, before taking up her current post at Keble College in 2000.