Natalie Martz

Research Topic

The Role of the Irish in British Royal Navy Polar Exploration of the Nineteenth Century

Supervisor: Ian McBride

Natalie Martz is a doctoral student pursuing a D.Phil. in Modern British History at St. Hugh’s College, the University of Oxford. After finishing her undergraduate studies at California State University, Long Beach, she graduated summa cum laude with an MA in German from the same institution in 2021 before receiving an M.Phil. in British and European History 1700-1850 with Distinction from the University of Oxford in 2023.

Among her awards and honors are the 2020 CLA Graduate Student Research Fellowship and inclusion in the 2021 CLA Dean’s List of Graduating Masters Students; she is also a 2024 Colin Matthew Fund grant recipient. Since 2015, she has assisted in editing and researching academic works on the artistic and philosophical legacies of Heinrich von Kleist and Friedrich Schiller. Natalie has also served as the main student organizer or co-organizer for three conferences at CSULB, including “A Republican Tragedy: The Imperiled Rule of the People in German Art and Thought” in 2020, and is now a co-convenor of the Oxford Seminar in Irish History.

Her research since 2019 has been focused on the experiences and identities of nineteenth-century polar explorers from Britain, Ireland, and Austro-Hungary, with her current D.Phil. thesis work investigating the lives of Irish polar explorers and their experiences of imperialism, religion, and nationality.