It’s a win for Dr Dora Vargha at the AHRC/Wellcome 2020 Awards!

Posted by Admin on 4 December 2020

Dr Dora Vargha has won the 2020 Medical Humanities Award for Best International Research with her research into the impact of epidemics on the political landscape, which has helped to shape current policy on epidemic management.

Her book, Polio Across The Iron Curtain, examines the emergence of polio vaccines in 1950s Europe, the manifold politics of vaccine development, use and failure; treatment regimens and postwar disability; and scientific collaboration and mistrust. She also put this research to use in developing policy approaches with the World Health Organization, as a member of a thinktank on the history of pandemics.

More recently, she has published a chapter in collaboration with a member of the Centre’s External Advisory Board, in which she questioned how the current COVID-19 pandemic might end – you can read that chapter via our Exploring Society with COVID-19 website.

The winners were announced last night on BBC Radio 3, and you can listen to the announcement (made by the Centre’s Des Fitzgerald on the BBC podcast Free Thinking!) here.

You can read more about the awards and the other winners here, and you can read more about Dora and her work here.