University of Edinburgh

Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow in Biomedical Ethics, Centre for Population Health Sciences

About

I am a sociologist of science, technology and medicine, and Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow in Biomedical Ethics, University of Edinburgh. To date, my research has focused primarily on psychiatry, psychology, and the neurosciences. I also have active research interests in sociological and science and technology studies approaches to bioethics and public health, and in the sociology of health-related enhancement.

Following doctoral studies at the University of Nottingham on the historical sociology of personality disorder, I moved to the University of Edinburgh as co-investigator of an ESRC project, 'Constituting Neurologic Subjects: Neuroscience, Identity and Society after the 'Decade of the Brain''. Subsequently, I continued this work on the social and ethical dimensions of neuroscience through a Newby Trust Fellowship, held at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh.

Currently, I am based in the Centre for Population Health Sciences, where I am researching the co-production of moral discourse and clinical knowledge in psychology. In particular, I explore professional decision-making in regards to access to therapy. I am also a co-investigator of the AHRC project, 'Banking (on) the Brain: The Neurological in Culture, Law and Science', and am part of the Manchester/Edinburgh Wellcome Trust Strategic Award in Biomedical Ethics, ‘The Human Body, Its Scope, Limits and Future’.

At Edinburgh, I am a member of the Mason Institute for Medicine, Life Sciences and Law, and the Institute for the Study of Science, Technology and Innovation (ISSTI). I am also an associate of the Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology (CCACE; University of Edinburgh), the ESRC Centre for Social and Economic Research on Innovation in Genomics (Innogen; Open University/University of Edinburgh), and the Institute of Mental Health (IMH; Nottinghamshire Health Care NHS Trust/University of Nottingham). I have been a visiting scholar at Harvard University, the London School of Economics and Political Science, the University of Groningen, the University of Manchester, and the National Institutes of Health.

I have participated in and co-organised a range of public engagement events, and over 2011 was a Wellcome Trust 75th Anniversary Public Engagement Ambassador. I am also an inaugural member of the Young Academy of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and member of the Editorial Board of the journal Sociology of Health & Illness.

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