Iona Walker is a medical anthropologist fascinated by the poetry and science of being human in a more-than-human world.
Iona completed her PhD in social anthropology at the University of Edinburgh (funded by the Wellcome Trust) where she conducted ethnographic fieldwork with scientists at British research-intensive university during the Covid-19 pandemic. This work explored how scientists imagine, respond to and understand human-microbe relationships in the context of their research on antimicrobial resistance and respiratory tract infections. In particular, Iona’s research explores how researchers reconfigure their understandings of health, infection and human-microbe relationships, through their AMR research, away from antagonism and toward more situated, emergent forms of relations; as well as how scientists construct and articulate their everyday research practices as ‘AMR’ through the imperatives of academic knowledge production in the UK.
Iona is a founding member of Beyond Resistance, an interdisciplinary network designed to catalyse curiosity and collaboration between the sciences, arts and humanities in regards to microbial challenges like AMR.
