PhD student
College: Emmanuel
Supervisor: Nick Hopwood
Thesis topic: The Afterlives of Eradication: Comparing Experiences of Polio-Disability in Britain and Kenya, 1963–2000.
My project will compare experiences of polio-disability in Britain and Kenya, roughly between 1950 and 2025, to investigate the ways in which these experiences were similar and different, and how they were structured by transnational exchange. It will reveal the continued presence of polio in the bodies and lived realities of those impacted and, indeed, within society and culture more broadly. It will incorporate a range of themes, including [1] rehabilitation, healthcare, and welfare, [2] embodiment, emotion, and assistive technology, [3] community: networks of relationality, interpersonal and caregiving relations, and disability communities, and [4] time, encompassing the chronicity of polio eradication and individual life course, particularly the ontological presence and impact of post-polio syndrome.
Talks: "'Exploring Representations of British Polio-Disabled Individuals and the Formation of a Positive Polio-Disabled Identity", IHR History Lab Conference, University of London (2025).
"Making and Unmaking Disabled Bodies: Rituals and Disability in Viking Age Scandinavia", Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference, University of Oxford (2025).
"She Types with Her Toes': Gender and Experiences and Representations of Polio-Disability in Post-War Britain", Gender, Sexuality, and the Body Symposium, Newcastle University (2024)
Awards and Prizes: Derek Brewer Research Studentship, University of Cambridge.
Roy Porter 2024/25 Essay Prize from the Society for the Social History of Medicine.
Wellcome Trust Studentship, University of Manchester.
Prior Education: 2024 - BA History and Politics, Newcastle University, First Class.
2025 - MA History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, The University of Manchester, TBD.