About — Dr Katie Masters

In 2014, I graduated with a first class honours BSc Physics degree from the University of Leicester, winning the Stewardson Essay Prize — for the best essay by a Physics Undergraduate — and the Departmental Prize — awarded to the highest performing final year student. I then pursued a long-standing interest in Sexuality and Gender Studies by embarking on an interdisciplinary Master of Research degree at the University of Birmingham, during which time I became fascinated by the gender dynamics associated with mental health. Following this, I was awarded a College of Arts and Law Doctoral Scholarship, also at the University of Birmingham, which allowed me to study full-time for my PhD from 2018. My doctoral research explored women's experiences of Social Anxiety Disorder from a feminist, sociological, and medical humanities perspective. I passed my viva with no corrections in 2021, and I am now working on my first book, premised on my doctoral research, which is under contract with Palgrave MacMillan.

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My writing has been featured on several popular blogs, including The Mental Elf and The F-Word, and, more recently, the Wellcome Trust-funded online publication Index of Evidence. Additionally, I have several publications — such as in Stroke, International Mad Studies Journal, and Journal of Bodies, Sexualities and Masculinities (forthcoming). I have also worked as Editorial Assistant for Cambridge University Press on Professor Lisa Downing’s edited collection, After Foucault, and I am a former editorial board member for the journal Midlands Historical Review. Outside of academia, I have written for the magazine Pulse and have previously worked as a reporter for a local newspaper.