Rebecca Watterson, (PhD Researcher)

Rebecca is a final year PhD researcher investigating the use of psychosurgery in the UK in the period 1940-1986. She is based in the History department in the School of Arts and Humanities.

She holds a BA in History from The Open University and an MA in History from Ulster University. Her MA research examined why the enzyme, cholinesterase, was a major focus of psychiatric medical research in the UK during the 1950s. For this work she was awarded ‘The Birley Prize for the best MA thesis in social history 2020’.

Rebecca is researcher for Epidemic Belfast, a medical history podcast developed by researchers from Ulster University’s School of History. This project was supported by Department for the Economy (Northern Ireland) Research Recovery funding. Visit the website: https://epidemic-belfast.com/

Committee Roles:

• History Lab Plus - Regional Ambassador for Northern Ireland
• HSTM Network Ireland - HSTM Magazine Editorial, Webmaster & Social Media Editor

Rebecca is also Book Review Editor Assistant for the journal, Social History of Medicine. She has helped to organise several conferences including the 2022 British Society for the History of Science Annual Conference in Belfast.