Dr David Robertson

I am a postdoctoral researcher funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Prior to coming to Oxford I completed my PhD in Princeton University's Program in the History of Science. Born and raised in Australia, I have also lived and built academic networks in the United States, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. I am married with two young children.

Research Interests

My research is focused on the history of science, medicine and public health. My current postdoctoral project - Imagined Immunities: A History of Our Collective Resistance to Disease - examines a century of scientific work on concepts of "herd immunity." Predominantly focused on British bacteriologists, virologists and epidemiologists, my project asks how scientists have imagined immunity - ordinarily understood as a concept pertaining to individuals - as an attribute of collectives. The project reflects my longstanding interest in the relevance of history to deepening our understanding of the present.

In addition to my current project on the history of infectious disease epidemiology, I am also engaged in completing my book project, titled ‘Crazy Standards: The World Health Organization, Psychiatric Epidemiology and the Remaking of Psychiatry.’ Building on my doctoral dissertation, this work bridges the history and sociology of science and the history of psychiatry, in the process offering an alternative reading of the past seventy years of developments in psychiatric knowledge and practice.

In all my work I focus on the instruments, practices and personnel that are at the center of the knowledge production process.