Ceilidh was a PhD Candidate at the University of Saskatchewan. Her research examined the options that were available to Canadians dealing with injury and illness in the early 1900s, from seeking out medical personnel such as nurses and doctors, to alternative strategies such as relying on neighbours. She traced the rise of insurance as a growing solution, first in the form of private life insurance and mutual societies, then in the form of worker's compensation (and finally Medicare). She began developing her current research interests while completing a BA in American Studies at Smith College, looking at constructions of fitness and disability within the American eugenics movement between the 1880s and the 1920s. She completed an MA in the History of Medicine at McGill University, looking at early twentieth-century North American constructions of obesity.