Dr Laura Dawes
Headshot of a woman in glass in front of a white brick wall.
Historian, author, broadcaster. Focuses on communicating medicine and law to the public. They research medical knowledge, law, skin cancer, DNA, public health, quackery, obesity, and diet drugs.
email laura.dawes@anu.edu.au
call +61 2 6125 3846
link ANU Researcher Portal profile

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About

Laura Dawes is an award-winning historian, author and broadcaster, who is devoted to the vibrant communication of the history of science, medicine and the law to the general public. Her research, writing and teaching investigates the history of modern science and particularly the history of medicine and the law, with a focus on public outputs and engagement. She previously worked in the media, in print, radio and television, and was awarded the Wellcome Trust/Guardian Science Writing Prize and the ABC Best Half Hour of Local Radio. Her history and science documentaries have been broadcast on, for example, PBS, the History Channel, BBC, and Smithsonian Television. Laura regularly speaks and writes in the media and to the general community on a variety of medical, scientific and legal topics.

Dr Dawes's first book, CHILDHOOD OBESITY IN AMERICA: BIOGRAPHY OF AN EPIDEMIC, was published to wide acclaim in 2014. Her second book FIGHTING FIT: THE WARTIME BATTLE FOR BRITAIN’S HEALTH was shortllisted for ACT Book of the Year. Laura holds a PhD from Harvard University in History of Science, a Masters degree from Oxford University and a Bachelors degree in physics and mathematics from Murdoch University in Western Australia. She has received numerous awards, prizes and fellowships, including Vice-Chancellor's Awards for Academic Excellence, the Frank Gillespie Prize, the Ronald Searcy Prize, the Parnell O'Connor Prize for creative writing, and the Forbes Society award in Legal History.

Fellowships:

  • Frank Knox Fellow (Harvard)
  • Clarendon Fund Scholar (Oxford)
  • Chevening Scholar (Oxford)
  • Warren Centre Fellow (Harvard)
  • Bicentennial Scholar (Australia)

Awards:

  • Forbes Society (NSW Bar Association) Award for Legal History (2023)
  • Vice Chancellor’s Commendation for Academic Excellence (2022)
  • Best Half Hour of Australian Radio (2018)
  • ACT Book of the Year 2016 (shortlist)
  • Wellcome Trust/Guardian Science Writing Prize (2013)
  • University Medal in Science (1998)
  • Gillespie Memorial Prize in Physics (1995)
  • Mathematics Staff Prize (1995)
  • Physics Staff Prize (1994)
  • Ronald Searcy Prize in Mathematics (1993)

Grants

  • ANU Early Career Researcher International Travel Grant (2024)
  • British Society for the History of Science research grant (2013)
  • Wellcome Trust Research Grant (2013-14) 

 

Affiliations

Research interests

My particular area of expertise is the intersection of the history of science/medicine, public policy and the law. My research focuses on the public communication of science/medicine and public health, and also communication to specialized audiences outside of science, including the use of science/medicine in the law. My publications have included a study of the communication and reception of the theory of continental drift, the childhood obesity epidemic, public health as wartime strategy, patient activism, alternative health, medicine and the US space program, the rhetoric of climate change, and the use of the law to communicate and advance health policy.

Supervised students

Publications