Ailsa Rennie

Ailsa Rennie writes biography out of Edinburgh, with a focus on women in twentieth-century science, art, and letters whose work was historically credited to the men in the rooms beside them. Her writing uncovers forgotten archival papers to reconstruct the lived realities of intellectual collaboration.

Through works like Compound S, The Fossil Hunter, and The Birkbeck Years, she examines the institutional structures that obscured female achievement. She also explores these themes of lost legacy and ownership in The Paris Radium Institute and The Letter from Madras.

She lives in the Edinburgh suburbs, where she spends her weekends restoring antique bookbindings and volunteering at a local community orchard.