Dr Rebecca Wynter
Policy
Rebecca Wynter’s looks at policy for SSHM, after serving previously as the Chair of the Roy Porter Prize. She is a historian of medicine and mental health since 1750 and Researcher in Health Humanities at the University of Amsterdam. She has been awarded a 2025/6 Fellowship at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS-KNAW).
She has published widely on mental illness, the psy-disciplines, and first responders, including in the British Journal for the History of Science, Review of General Psychology, Social History and Wellcome Open. Her most recent book is Anniversaries, Memory and Mental Health in International Historical Perspective: Faith in Reform, co-edited with Jennifer Wallis and Rob Ellis (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023). She is currently researching the history of policing and ‘mental disorder’ since 1890, and women in the private asylum business, 1600–1890 (with Len Smith).
Rebecca is an interdisciplinary scholar, collaborating with psychiatrists and psychologists, and with Quakers. She co-leads the Mental Health Humanities Researcher Network, and is co-ordinator for the PULSE Network for Medical and Health Humanities (University of Amsterdam). She has also worked on public history with community groups, volunteers, museums, and feature film and documentary makers.
Beyond her work as Roy Porter Prize Chair, Rebecca has helped develop SSHM’s approaches to precarity and supporting new researchers, and contributed to those around social justice in the History of Medicine and in Higher Education.