College: Fitzwilliam
Supervisor: Mary Brazelton
Advisor: Helen Curry
Thesis topic: The history of dengue fever in Singapore after 1965
Thesis summary: From 1965 to 1985, Singapore experienced dramatic success in reducing both mosquito density and the incidence of dengue fever, prompting the World Health Organization to herald it as a model for vector control worldwide. However, after 1985 the country suffered from a rapid resurgence of dengue fever, with annual epidemics occurring even as mosquito density remained low. My thesis looks at this success and resurgence using approaches drawn from the history of medicine and public health, environmental history, and postcolonial and global histories of Southeast Asia. Specific chapters examine the transition from malaria to dengue control, responses to public health campaigns, and regional and international networks involved in dengue control.
Please feel free to contact me at tsss2 [at] cam.ac.uk!
Research interests:
- History of medicine and the environment after 1800
- History of public health and health education
- History of STM in East and Southeast Asia
- Global, postcolonial, and decolonial approaches to history
Publications
-
Campbell, Erinn and Timothy Sim. “Histories of Integrated Pest Control in the WHO and the FAO.” In Routledge Handbook of Health and Environmental Humanities, edited by Victoria Bates, Rocio Gomez, and Amber Abrams (expected 2026)
-
Sim, Timothy. "The Citizen as a Public Health Actor: Complaints as Public Engagement with Aedes Mosquito Control in Singapore, 1965–1985." Bulletin of the History of Medicine 98, no. 2 (2024): 266-297.
-
Sim, Timothy. "The Reception of Robert M. Young's Mind, Brain and Adaptation in the Nineteenth Century." In Psychoanalysis, Science and Power: Essays in Honour of Robert Maxwell Young, edited by Kurt Jacobsen and R. D. Hinshelwood, 60 - 83. Routledge.
Awards
-
Craig A. Lockard Prize (2025) for best early career journal article on Malaysia, Singapore, or Brunei by the MSB Studies Group of the Association of Asian Studies, for the BHM article on “The Citizen as a Public Health Actor".
-
Commission on Science, Technology and Diplomacy (STAND) 2023 Early Career Prize - Honourable Mention
-
Fitzwilliam College Kuok Family – Lee Kuan Yew PhD Studentship, University of Cambridge (2021 - present)
Conferences and Talks
-
“Success as vulnerability: the crisis of epidemic dengue in Singapore, 1985 – 2000”, British Society for the History of Science (BSHS) Annual Conference, Cambridge, UK, 8 – 10 July 2025.
-
“Epidemic crisis: dengue fever in Singapore, 1986 – present”, Cambridge Festival, Cambridge, UK, 19 March – 4 April 2025.
-
“The quest for alternatives to pesticides: integrated control in the WHO, 1960 – 2000”, European Society for the History of Science (ESHS) conference, Barcelona, Spain, 4 – 7 Sep 2024.
-
“Debating Dengue: Dengue Fever and the Development of Epidemiological Networks in Postwar Southeast Asia”, in a panel on “The Transformation of Scientific Medicine and Public Health in 20th Century East Asia”, Association for Asian Studies (AAS) annual conference, Seattle, Washington, 14 – 17 March 2024.
-
"Global Recognition without Regional Relevance: Singapore’s international engagements in vector control in the 1970s and 1980s", Commission on Science, Technology and Diplomacy (STAND) Early Career Prize roundtable seminar, online, 8 Jun 2023.
- "Finding the Public in Public Health: Complaints as public engagement with mosquito control in Singapore, 1965 - 1985", American Association for the History of Medicine (AAHM) 96th annual meeting, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 11-14 May 2023.
Supervisions and seminars
- HPS Part IB Paper 1: History of Science
- HPS Part II Paper 3: History of Modern Medicine and Life Sciences
- HPS Part II Paper 2: Sciences and Empires - Science, Technology and Society in East Asia
- Decolonise HPS seminar (2021-23)
