PhD student
College: Emmanuel
Supervisor: Nick Hopwood
Thesis topic: Experiences of Polio-Disability in Britain and Kenya, c. 1950–2025.
My project will examine experiences of polio-disability in Britain and Kenya, roughly between 1950 and 2025, to investigate the ways in which they 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]/[2] diagnosis, rehabilitation and surgery in both countries, [3] community and care: welfare, networks of relationality, interpersonal and caregiving relations, [4] the impaired body and assistive technologies, [5] identity: constructions of a polio disabled identity and diasporic experiences, and [5] post-polio syndrome and polio futures: symptoms, presence and impact and chronicity of polio eradication
Publications: ‘She Types with Her Toes’: Examining Experiences and Representations of Polio Disability Through the British Polio Fellowship Newsletter, ‘The Bulletin’, 1963–1973, Social History of Medicine, 2026.
Disability in Viking Age Iceland and Beyond: Rituals of the Body, Epoch Magazine, 2026.
"I used to be afraid, now I am Egyptian': Exploring the role of emotion in Tahrir Square during the 2011 Egyptian Arab Spring", Cambridge Journal of Political Affairs, 2024.
"The Bulletin: A meaning-making mechanism for British polio disabled people", British Society for the History of Medicine Blog, 2024.
Talks: "Technological Embodiment: Experiences of Calliper Usage Among British Polio Disabled Individuals, 1950-2025", British Society of Literature and Science Conference, University of Strathclyde (2026).
"Calliper Materiality and Technological Embodiment: Experiences of Polio-Disabled Calliper Users in Post-War Britain", Material Culture Workshop, University of Cambridge (2026).
"Experiences of Polio-Disabled Calliper Users in Britain, 1950-2025", Emmanuel College Postgraduate Talks, University of Cambridge (2025)
"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, 2024/25.
W L Burn Memorial Prize for Greatest Academic Merit, Newcastle University, 2024.
Joseph Cowen Memorial Prize for Excellent Modern History Essay, Newcastle University, 2021.
Prior Education: 2024 - BA History and Politics, Newcastle University, First Class.
2025 - MA History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, The University of Manchester, Distinction.