Rachael completed a Masters degree in medieval history at Oxford, before which she was an undergraduate at Keele, where she was allowed for the first time to study a period of history before the First World War, and where her interest in heresy and inquisition began. In between, she worked in a safari park, mostly just in the shops, but with lion-taming aspirations.

Rachael's work on the project focused on an exploration of the religion and culture of the thirteenth-century Southern French nobility, with particular interest in the dynamics of the relationship between inquisition and community and questions about aristocratic involvement in religious dissent. She successfully defended her thesis in August 2019, and is now training to be a teacher.