Emily Webster, PhD, MSc

Coming your way next week! With @emilywebz.bsky.social @durham.ac.uk

@durhamimh.bsky.social

Interested in multispecies health? Why not come work with my excellent colleague Hannah Brown at Durham?

durham.taleo.net/careersectio...

Job opening at the Royal Observatory Greenwich (3 year fixed term): Heritage Operations Officer, responsible for coordinating public engagement and events for the Heritage Fund programme associated with the First Light redevelopment of the site #scicomm 📜

a cartoon of a boy reading a book in front of a stack of books . ALT: a cartoon of a boy reading a book in front of a stack of books .

I'm very excited to be taking on a new role as Book Reviews Editor for the British Journal for the History of Science alongside the wonderful @coreenanne.bsky.social! We receive a wide range of excellent books for review, so please do reach out if you are interested in writing a review for us!

Stages of article revision: “I have written trash, the reviewer has seen through me, how can I possibly make anything of this…oh wait, that wasn’t so hard, cool!”

One week left to enter @sshmedicine.bsky.social Roy Porter Essay Prize 2025/6
Deadline: Sunday 1 February
#histmed #histSTM #medhumanities

Be on the lookout here for reflections on our discussions, our website, and loads of cow content!

In practice this means I get to spend my weeks reading and talking about cattle infrastructures in Southern and Eastern Africa with a formidable group of historians, anthropologists, economists, and geographers, and I genuinely cannot think of a more fun way to spend a term.

This term, Durham’s IAS is sponsoring myself, Hannah Brown, Francis Massé, and Justin Willis to run a project, “Interest in Cattle: Value, Risk, and Security in Eastern and Southern Africa,” alongside a great group of fellows from the Universities of Zambia, Cape Town, and Reading.

Life in Durham improved substantially when I realized I could get a really solid cup of vegan chai at basically any time of day

Back-scratching bovine leads scientists to reassess intelligence of cows Brown Swiss in Austria has been discovered using tools in multiple ways – something only ever seen in humans and chimpanzees

COW TOOLS COW TOOLS COW TOOLS

When your D&D group is made up of a bunch of historians and history buffs, you naturally do age of sail homages @robertsuits.bsky.social

The world is pretty crappy right now, but at least I managed to make a perfect vegan grilled cheese for lunch today (no picture because that’s how fast I ate it).

Postdoctoral Research Associate | King's College London

I'm hiring 2 postdocs on my Wellcome project "How Did Infectious Diseases Become Wild?: Plague, Yellow Fever, and Disease Ecology in the Brazilian Hinterland (1920-1975)"

Department of Global Health and Social Medicine
King's College
3 years 01/10/26- 30/09/29
Deadline: 01/02/26
shorturl.at/KZ6Vh

If I remember right, Randy Packard’s History of Global Health is good for this as well!

Cattle Commodification in Global History - International Workshop Call for Papers - CATTLEFRONTIERS International Workshop, 3-5 June, Ghent University

#CFP: "Cattle Commodification in Global History: Capitalism, Science and Empire". International Workshop, Ghent University, 3-5 June 2026.

Deadline for abstracts: 23 January 2026

Info: cattlefrontiers.eu/workshop-cat...

#envhum #envhist #agriculture #environment #hstm #histsci

Hundreds Quarantined in South Carolina as Measles Outbreak Shows No Sign of Slowing The outbreak shows no signs of slowing, likely because of the affected area’s “lower-than-hoped-for vaccination coverage,” a state health official said.

More than 250 people who were exposed to measles, including dozens of unvaccinated school-aged children, are quarantining in South Carolina as the state wrestles to contain an outbreak that has sickened more than 110 people.

Had such an excellent couple of days thinking and speaking about Planetary Health with some brilliant people (and some of my academic role models!). Merci à tous! :)

Interested or know someone interested in doing a PhD on environmental histories/materialities of zoonotic or infectious animal disease as part of Transformative Humanities @durham.ac.uk Then please get in touch by Dec 8th! @pollenetwork.bsky.social @emilywebz.bsky.social @rgs-agwg.bsky.social

A Social History of Polio Vaccination in Australia, 1950s to 1970s

Amazing History of Medicine PhD scholarship opportunity at the University of Newcastle (Australia), part of Prof Cathy Coleborne's ARC grant on Australian experiences of polio: www.newcastle.edu.au/study/resear...

Emily's page This is a cause that is deeply personal to me - in more ways than one. I was 27 years old when, just days after I graduated from my PhD program, a routine medical scan uncovered a large tumor in my ap

Hi all - I’m running the London Marathon this year for the Institute for Cancer Research. Those who know me know that this is a deeply personal cause to me. Please consider donating if you can!
2026tcslondonmarathon.enthuse.com/pf/emily-web...

Absolutely! I’ll send you an email?

Anyone interested in joining a panel proposal on Health in Civil Rights movements for the AAHM this year? DM me or comment if so!

Your weekly reminder that voter "concern" with immigration doesn't correspond to actual immigration levels.

It corresponds to the amount of coverage the media gives immigration.

This an entirely self-fulfilling mess, and it is entirely pointless.

RFK Jr. rolled out that old chestnut again about how healthy Americans were in the 60’s, so here’s a fact check.

In 1965:

-42% of American adults smoked; it’s 11% now.

-The infant morality rate was 24.7/1000; it’s 5.6/1000 now.

-Overall life expectancy was 70 years; it's about 77 years now.

Me, trying to fit in in Berlin: ein Kaffee mit hafermilch, bitte
Barista (in a heavy Irish accent): you want that regular or large?

Up early and off to #EAHMH2025! So excited to attend some fascinating talks and to present on sentinel animals in environmental health history alongside @kirchhelle.bsky.social! A big shoutout to @robertsuits.bsky.social for driving me to the airport at 4 AM so I could make it to morning panels ❤️

I really appreciate how our neighborhood facilitates this kind of community gathering - even in London!

There is a group of seniors who meets in the cafe where I’m currently writing a conference paper, and they are laughing so hard they’re crying. It’s a real day-brightener, especially when we seem to hear overwhelmingly stories of isolation among those in their later years.

Hopping on the early morning Eurostar on my way to Basel for a very exciting workshop!! I hope the novelty of being able to travel without planes never wears off.