Professor Rebecca Flemming (she/her)

Professor Rebecca Flemming is the inaugural A.G. Leventis Chair in Ancient Greek Scientific and Technological Thought and the Director of the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health (WCCEH) at the University of Exeter. She is an internationally renowned scholar of ancient medicine and science--she was a Joukowsky Lecturer for the Archaeological Institute of America during the 2020-2021 period, for example, lecturing on the archaeology of ancient reproduction and anatomy as religion—and has a leading role in a suite of international collaborative research and publication projects.   

Professor Flemming’s research focuses on ancient medicine in its social and cultural context, with special attention to gender, sexuality, and reproduction. She takes an interdisciplinary approach to the subject, using literary texts and material objects as well as modern scientific evidence to explore disease, health and healing, the full range of patients and practitioners in the Greek and Roman worlds, and to investigate the diversity of understandings and debates about the human body.  The Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health widens the space for multi-disciplinarity, focusing on the many intersections between the humanities, social sciences, health, disease and medical knowledge.

Professor Flemming is always open to hearing from prospective PhD students and early career researchers who broadly share her research interests and would be keen to work in an interdisciplinary setting around health, culture and society.