My research examines the history of medicine in Britain and areas of British overseas settlement between 1880 and 1960. I am the Principal Investigator for a new project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council: ‘Crossing Boundaries: The History of First Aid in Britain and France, 1909-1989’, for which I am working with Co-Investigator Professor Barry Doyle at the University of Huddersfield. In connection with this research, I am writing a book on the history of the British Red Cross. I am completing a co-authored interdisciplinary book on British colonial nursing with colleagues at King’s College London. In particular, I focus on the collective biography of the nurses: their training and work experience in the UK and North America, and motivations for working overseas. I investigate their work and lives in areas of the world which include China, British Malaya and Kenya. I am also interested in the history of medicine in late colonial Kenya and am planning a publication on typhoid during the Mau Mau Rebellion. My first project, based on my doctoral research, investigated the use of bacteriology in hospitals, workplaces and local communities and culminated in a published monograph, Bacteria in Britain, 1880-1939 (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2013; Routledge 2015, paperback 2016).

I enjoy engaging with the public. For example, I have co-designed an iPod app – an interactive tour of the banks of the Thames in London, entitled Navigating Nightingale, which explores the history of London through Florence Nightingale’s interests in topics such as war, religion and social deprivation. I have led curation for exhibitions, including The Thinking Nurse at the Florence Nightingale Museum, and film shows, including Screening the Nurse at the Imperial War Museum.

I was educated at the University of Liverpool (BA) and Imperial College London (MSc and PhD) and undertook my teaching qualification (PGCAP) at King’s College London. I studied Economic and Social History as an undergraduate and History of Science, Technology and Medicine as a postgraduate. Since my PhD, I have held postdoctoral research roles at the University of Oxford and at King’s College London, before undertaking a temporary lectureship in History of Medicine at Imperial College London. I arrived at the University of Hull in September 2012.

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