Angela Cassidy is an Associate Professor in Science and Technology Studies at the University of Exeter. Her research expertise spans across STS, environmental/agricultural history, and the history of science, technology and medicine.  She is interested in science-policy relations, science communication and engagement, and interdisciplinarity, and investigates these themes through a topical focus on environments, conservation and agriculture; human-animal relations; and questions of shared health. She researches how scientific knowledge is produced, communicated, interpreted and contested across the wider public sphere, particularly during public controversies. She has explored these processes through a series of case studies, including of 'One Health' advocacy; food chain risks and popular evolutionary psychology.

Her work on the 50-year history of the UK controversy over bovine TB and badger culling, investigated the roles of badgers, cows, microbes, scientists, campaigners, policymakers, and politicians in the mutual shaping of science, policy and human-animal relations in the UK.  Her open access monograph, Vermin, Victims and Disease: British Debates Over Bovine Tuberculosis and Badgers is the outcome of two research fellowships (funded by Wellcome Trust and UKRI) and provides the first critical history of this fraught – and ongoing – debate.

Her current projects include RENEWing Biodiversity, in which she co-leads the Collaboration in Practice theme, combining oral history with embedded STS to investigate inter and transdisciplinary collaborative experiences in past and present; and From 'Feed the Birds' to 'Do Not Feed the Animals’, where she leads on engaged research (working with zoos, museums, and conservation NGOs); and is continuing to investigate the changing science and governance of ‘pest control’ as it has transformed into ‘wildlife management’ since the mid-20^th century.

GRANTS AND AWARDS:

• 2021-2025: Co-I, Renewing biodiversity through a people-in-nature approach (RENEW), (UKRI, NERC)
• 2022-2025: Co-I, Research Enrichment Award – Modern Bestiary (Wellcome Trust)
• 2020-2025: Co-I, Collaborative Award in Humanities and Social Science. From ‘Feed The Birds’ to ‘Do Not Feed The Animals’ (Wellcome Trust)
• 2013-2017: PI, Medical Humanities Fellowship. Managing Bovine TB: a disease at the intersections of human, owned & wild (Wellcome Trust)
• 2008-2011: PI, Early Career Fellowship. The Badger-TB Controversy: Expertise and Experience in Animal Disease. (UKRI, RELU)
• 2003-2004: Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. (UKRI, ESRC)
• 1998-2002: Quota Award MSc. Studentship; Open Competition PhD Studentship (UKRI, ESRC)

Research supervision:  Dr. Cassidy currently co-supervises three PhD students. She is happy to hear from prospective PhD students and post-doctoral candidates who want to explore research projects adjacent to her interests as described above.