Romola is a historical demographer and geographer at Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, with degrees in history and biology, a PhD in plant biophysics and an MSc in demography.

Her research spans health geographies, historical demography, history of public health, urbanisation, historical epidemiology, infectious diseases in European societies c.1600 - 1945.  

She uses innovative multidisciplinary approaches from demography, history, geography (Geographical Information Systems) and evolutionary biology to understand the early stages of the mortality transition, and the evolution of social inequalities in health and mortality.