Dr Jenny Crane completed her MA and PhD at the Centre for the History of Medicine, University of Warwick, between 2011 and 2015. Following this, she became a Public Engagement Research Fellow on the Centre’s ‘Cultural History of the NHS’ project, which was led by Professors Roberta Bivins and Mathew Thomson. She made significant contributions to our understanding of activism and activists engaging with 'our NHS', and has developed novel methodological approaches to engaging with the public as a tool for creating better and more inclusive history. Her many contributions to the project and to the history of the NHS are listed here.

Jenny is now a lecturer in health geography at the University of Bristol. Her innovative research continues to explore how health behaviours and campaigning are shaped by local, national, and international contexts; how small-scale health activisms can reshape understandings of major social global problems; and the inequalities ingrained into, and reinforced by, such campaigning. She has also – since writing the (Open Access, and well worth a read) book based on her PhD, Child Protection in England: Expertise, Expertise, and Emotion --- looked to theorise and describe an ‘expertise of experience’, which emerged and became powerful – though limited – in late twentieth century Britain. Inspired and trained by the Centre for the History of Medicine’s approach, her research is always engaged and collaborative, learning from medical, policy, and public partners, to better understand the affective nature of health ties to state welfare systems. She has written for the i, Metro, History Today, and British Medical Journal and has appeared on Dan Snow’s History HIIT, Sunday Brunch, and BBC Radio.

This year, as our first Anniversary Fellow, Jenny will be joining us at Warwick to showcase her new research and to discuss whether there is a 'Warwick School' in the history of medicine.