Dr Julia Swallow

School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations

Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow

Julia Swallow
Profile picture of Julia Swallow
j.e.swallow@sheffield.ac.uk
The Wave

Full contact details

Dr Julia Swallow
School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
Sheffield
S10 2AH
Profile

Julia joined the Department of Sociological Studies in 2024. Following undergraduate degree in Sociology at the University of Liverpool and masters degree in Social Research at the University of York, Julia undertook an Economic and Social Research Council funded PhD in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds (2012 – 2015). Following PhD, she was employed as Research Fellow (2016 – 2020) on the Wellcome Trust project ‘Translations and transformations in patienthood: cancer in the post-genomics era’ (PIs: Professor Anne Kerr (Leeds then Glasgow) and Professor Sarah-Cunningham Burley (Edinburgh)) at the University of Leeds. Julia then moved to the University of Edinburgh to undertake a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship in Humanities and Social Science (2020 – 2024). In 2024, she moved to Sheffield following the award of a Wellcome Trust Career Development (2024 – 2030) in Humanities and Social Science.

Research interests

Julia’s research lies at the intersection of medical sociology and science and technology studies (STS), where she analyses developments in contemporary biomedicine, in areas such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and cancer.

Julia’s work on Alzheimer’s disease has focussed on the role of technologies for diagnosing the condition in memory clinics, within the context of a growing ageing population. In particular, she has theorised on the contingency of classification in relation to how practitioners navigate the boundaries of disease in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer’s disease.

Julia is focussed more broadly on the experiences and challenges of contemporary biomedicine with regards to genomic technologies and the role of the immune system in cancer, for patients and for practitioners.

In February 2020, Julia commenced a project entitled ‘Harnessing the little white cells’: Tracing practices of immunity in cancer. This project focussed on immunotherapy treatments in cancer, exploring how these novel treatments are shifting how cancer is approached, managed and experienced. Through this fellowship she contributed to feminist STS discussions concerning the role of metaphor and discourse in immunology and offered new theorisation on the material significance of discursive framing with a particular emphasis on patients’ embodied experiences.

Julia’s current work, funded as a Wellcome Trust Career Development award, continues to explore the mutual shaping of emerging epistemic transformations in biomedicine with contemporary society by exploring how chronic inflammation as ‘medicine’s new frontier’ is (re)shaping understandings and experiences of degenerative disease.

With colleagues at the University of Edinburgh, Julia has sought to consolidate social science research on immunity to reflect the renewed biomedical interest in the immune system and its relationship to health and disease.

Publications

Journal articles

  • Swallow J (2025) . Sociology of Health & Illness, 47(7).
  • Swallow J (2025) . New Genetics and Society, 44(1), e2492849-e2492849.
  • Ford A & Swallow J (2024) . Medicine Anthropology Theory, 11(1), 1-12.
  • Swallow J (2024) . Social Studies of Science, 54(2), 305-321.
  • Ford A, De Togni G, Erikainen S, Filipe AM, Pickersgill M, Sturdy S, Swallow J & Young I (2024) . Medical Humanities, 50(1), 125-134.
  • Swallow J, Broer T, Kerr A & Cunningham-Burley S (2023) . Science, Technology, & Human Values, 49(5), 967-988.
  • Ross E, Kerr A, Swallow J, Chekar CK & Cunningham‐Burley S (2023) . Sociology of Health & Illness, 45(5), 1063-1081.
  • Kerr A, Chekar CK, Ross E, Swallow J & Cunningham-Burley S (2021) .
  • Greco C, Arteaga I, Fabian-Therond C, Llewellyn H, Swallow J & Viney W (2021) . Wellcome Open Research, 5.
  • Ross E, Swallow J, Kerr A, Chekar CK & Cunningham-Burley S (2021) . Social Science & Medicine, 278.
  • Kerr A, Chekar CK, Swallow J, Ross E & Cunningham-Burley S (2021) . New Genetics and Society, 40(1), 112-131.
  • Greco C, Arteaga I, Fabian-Therond C, Llewellyn H, Swallow J & Viney W (2020) . Wellcome Open Research, 5.
  • Swallow J, Kerr A, Chekar CK & Cunningham-Burley S (2020) . Social Science & Medicine, 252.
  • Swallow J (2020) . Sociology of Health & Illness, 42(S1), 99-113.
  • Swallow J (2020) . New Genetics and Society, 39(1), 13-30.
  • Kerr A, Swallow J, Chekar CK & Cunningham-Burley S (2019) . New Genetics and Society, 38(2), 222-239.
  • Ross E, Swallow J, Kerr A & Cunningham-Burley S (2019) . Health Expectations, 22(1), 74-82.
  • Swallow J & Hillman A (2019) . Social Studies of Science, 49(2), 227-244.
  • Swallow J (2017) . Social Science & Medicine, 184, 57-64.

Book chapters

  • Swallow J (2016) , Emerging Technologies for Diagnosing Alzheimer's Disease (pp. 123-139). Palgrave Macmillan UK

Book reviews

  • Swallow J (2017) . Sociology of Health & Illness, 39(6), 981-982.
Research group

At the University of Sheffield, Julia is:

  • Member of the “” (STeMiS) research theme.
  • Member of .

More widely, Julia is:

  • Co-convenor of the .
  • A member of the .
Teaching interests

I have taught and co-convened a wide-range of modules within a Sociology department and medical school, engaging critically with the relationship between medicine, health, illness and society.

Postgraduate Supervision

I am interested in supporting projects that are situated within the fields of medical sociology and/or Science and Technology Studies.