International Health Humanities Network Membership

Currently I am a Wellcome Trust-funded Postdoctoral Fellow, in the Centre for the History of Medicine, at the University of Warwick (2012-2015). Previously I was a SSHRC-funded Postdoctoral Fellow, in the Department of Art History & Communication Studies, at McGill University (2010-2012), while my PhD in Art History was completed at the University of Nottingham (2004-2008). My research concerns the history of light therapies (heliotherapy, phototherapy, and chromotherapy) in the UK, France and Switzerland, with a special focus on its visual and material cultures. This stemmed from earlier doctoral research on artists and convalescents on the French Riviera, broadly within the histories of climatotherapy and coastal tourism. I am particularly interested in how attitudes, both historical and contemporary, about sunlight and ultra-violet radiation have developed and continue to remain contentious, ambiguous and conflicting amongst a variety of health practitioners and the general public. The therapeutic use of light remains popular today in both conventional and 'alternative' medicine, while its aesthetic use - that is, for tanning - remains an exceptionally 'hot', and hotly-debated, topic.