Catherine Kelly is Professor of Law and History, and Head of School. She previously held the positions of School Education Director, Undergraduate Director, and Examinations Chair.

Her research focuses on law’s interaction with science and medicine in historical and contemporary contexts. In her historical work, she examines the ways in which laws relating to medicine and scientific innovation were made, applied and changed. Her work on current medical law focuses on professional regulation. Her monograph War and the Militarization of British Army Medicine, 1793-1830 was published in 2011. She has published widely in leading journals including: The Modern Law Review, The Cambridge Law Journal, The Law Quarterly Review, The Lancet, Legal History and Bulletin of the History of Medicine.

She has received a number of funding awards, including from the Wellcome Trust; the British Academy; the Australian Research Council; and the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute. She has held Fellowships at the National Maritime Museum, and the National Library of Australia. From 2005-2008 she held the Clifford Norton Fellowship in the History of Science at The Queen’s College, Oxford.

Catherine  is currently supervising two PhD students. She is interested in supervising theses on legal history (especially related to medicine, science,and intellectual property) and on the regulation of the professions.

Catherine previously worked at the Universities of Western Australia and Oxford; The Australian Medical Association and at Herbert Smith Freehills (Sydney). She was the Chair for the Law Sub-Panel Slovak Republic Periodic Evaluation of Research; is a DQB Assessor for the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. She has a particular interest in the regulation of the professions and sits on the Faculty of Health Sciences Fitness to Practise Panel, and is a Lay Council member of the General Chiropractic Council