She has published on early-modern horsemanship practices, theatrical animals, the early circus, and performances of gender. Dr. Mattfeld is the author of Becoming Centaur: Eighteenth-Century Masculinity and English Horsemanship (2017), and co-editor of multiple animal-studies publications. She is currently interest in the history of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century equestrian drama, circus Ephemera, the poetry of William Somerville and the development of the equine "breed" through history.