Professor Mark Jackson FBA

Summary

Mark Jackson is Professor of the History of Medicine at the University of Exeter. Funded by the British Academy, his doctoral research and early publications explored the ways in which developments in legal medicine and attitudes to unmarried mothers shaped the trials of women accused of murdering their new-born children in the eighteenth century.

Subsequent research projects, supported by the Wellcome Trust, have focused in turn on the emergence of institutions for "feeble-minded" children in late Victorian and Edwardian England, the causes of rising trends in allergic diseases in the modern world, the proliferation of scientific studies of war, work and stress during the middle decades of the twentieth century and the impact of psychological interpretations of the midlife crisis on Western accounts of the life course. 

Throughout his work, Jackson has sought to understand the socio-economic and cultural determinants of scientific knowledge, clinical practice and personal experiences of health and illness.

Building on his degree in Immunology and training as a doctor, Jackson has championed the role of interdisciplinary research across the arts, humanities and social sciences in broadening medical education and informing health policies. 

He was the founding Director of the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health and the WHO Collaborating Centre on Culture and Health. 

In addition to chairing a number of Wellcome Trust funding committees, he has served as Senior Academic Advisor (Medical Humanities) at the Wellcome Trust, chaired the WHO Euro Expert Group on the Cultural Contexts of Health and been a member of the WHO European Advisory Committee on Health Research.  He was Chair of the History sub-panel for REF 2021.

Jackson takes an active interest in public engagement. In 2018, he was awarded the Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Medal by the Royal Society for his contributions to popularising medical history and the medical humanities.