About the Role
We are seeking an Ad Astra Fellow - Assistant Professor in One Health to join our College of Arts and Humanities.
The successful candidate will be based in the UCD School of History, Ireland's pre-eminent centre for historical teaching and research. They will collaborate with the School of English, Drama, and Film and play a key role in developing a transdisciplinary academic field across UCD.
History is ranked amongst the top 100 history schools in the world (QS 2024). The COVID 19 pandemic and recent outbreaks have highlighted the interconnectedness of animals, humans, microbes, and the environment.
About the Field of One Health
One Health is a rapidly evolving area that seeks to understand the roots of ecological and planetary interconnectedness. Medical and veterinary scientists are increasingly collaborating with humanities thinkers to develop nuanced understandings of how human responses to crises are shaped by different cultural contexts and historical narratives.
Humanities researchers offer specific expertise in methodologies to understand the history and representation of developments in medical and environmental theories and practice; the social, political, and philosophical values that underpin diagnosis, treatment, and policy; and the legacies of colonial/postcolonial extractivism for the contemporary environmental crisis.
Key Responsibilities
* Analyse the interconnected origins of disease circuits across human and animal communities and untangle the implications for contemporary disease outbreaks.
* Deconstruct colonial and postcolonial power relations in contemporary understandings, depictions, and management of diseases, environmental crises, and zoonoses by local, national and international health organisations and bodies, including non-state actors.
* Examine the development of pest and biological controls, in the context of twentieth-century development policies and concerns over food production, safety and security.
* Centre the voices, lifeways, and experiences of colonised and/or indigenous communities, and analyse their responses to medical interventions, such as vaccination and sanitation programmes.
* Make methodological contributions to ongoing discussions about uncovering new types of non-human environmental data sets (archives), such as herbariums or historic microbe collections, and debates on representing non-speaking subjects.
* Demonstrate the centrality of narrative, cultural forms, and discursive systems to the construction, representation and dissemination of knowledge.
What We Offer
* A five-year appointment with the possibility of permanency after a four-year performance review.
* One funded PhD studentship, an annual research budget of €5000, and a reduced teaching load.
* The opportunity to apply for external funding, publish in international peer-reviewed journals, participate in conferences and workshops, supervise Ad Astra PhD candidates, and develop public engagement activities aimed at non-specialist audiences.
Long-term Goals
* Train a new cohort of researchers in inter- and trans-disciplinary One Health methodologies.
* Develop undergraduate and graduate taught programmes aimed at practitioners and researchers (humanities; public health; veterinary sciences).
* Forging links with international health organisations and internal researchers.
* Fostering a cluster of PhD students and postdoctoral researchers.
About the Team
The UCD School of History is home to a diverse faculty of scholars with research strengths in medical history, medical humanities, and environmental history. Our team is committed to excellence in research and education, and we are seeking an exceptional candidate to join us in this exciting initiative.