Professor Alison Downham Moore

I am an award-winning medical humanities scholar and conceptual historian of health, gender and sexuality, of mixed European and First Nations ancestry, working on unceded Gundungurra, Tharawal and Dharug lands. My work at Western is split between research, teaching, postgraduate supervision, mentoring, leadership and governance. I am a core member of the Translational Health Institute (THRI) and a member of the Sexualities and Genders Research group (SAGR).

In addition to my PhD in history of psychiatry, I have studied undergraduate biomedical sciences,  postgraduate public health, bioethics, and higher education management, as well as accredited professional development training in AI studies, Indigenous teaching and research ethics, data analytics and business adminstration.

Current Research

I lead the 'Health, Humanities and Science' research concentration in the School of Arts, and I am the winner of the 2025 WSU Vice Chancellor's Excellence in Research, Researcher of the Year Award.

My 4th monograph, The Gendering of Ageing in the Emergence of Biomedicine will be published in 2026 by Cambridge University Press (under contract).

My current research is focused on 4 projects:

1) ARC DP260202010 on A Global History of Hysterectomy, a large diachronic and intercultural study, including a focus on the lived experience of surgery patients and their contributions to medical knowledge; PhD scholarship available.

2) ARC DP260203016: A Cultural History of Workplace Fatigue, in collaboration with cultural studies scholar Elizabeth Stephens, phillosopher Christopher O'Neill, and ethnographer/digital sustainability consultant Melissa Gregg. A 2-year Postdoctoral position is currently available.

3) Co-editing the Routledge Handbook of the Health and Medical Humanities, with Elizabeth Stephens, Katie Sutton and Huang, Rong (under contract).

4) Seeding Biohumanities for Australian Innovation, a new, long-term, capacity-building meta-project involving a large multidisciplinary network. It is aimed at developing novel creative solutions to wicked problems in health, environment, digital technology and their interaction, by supporting unusual collaborations and dual expertise across the humanities and biosciences.

Teaching and T&L Leadership

I am a Senior Fellow of AdvanceHE (HEA), a certified Quality Matters (QM) international peer-reviewer of online teaching design (USA).

My teaching has focused on History of Genders and Sexualities (HUMN 3048) and I am now developing innovative multi-disciplinary new curriculum in the Medical and Health Humanities.

I hold 5 Quality Matters (USA) certificates in AI-powered T&L design, and 3 in Indigenous teaching, HDR supervision and research ethics (2022-2025), and integrate AI-literacy and skills development and Indigneous methods and content into all my teaching.

Governance

I am the current academic elected member of the University's Board of Trustees (2024-2027), having previously served as Chair of the Professoriate Leadership Group (2024-25), as Associate Dean of Research for the School of Arts (2022-25), as a School Disability Coordinator (2015-20), as a Convenor of the History and Politics group (2015-18), and serving on the School of Arts Indigenous Committee in (2025-6). From 2026-28, I serve on the SABEL Distinguished Professor nomination commitee.

External Research Leadership

I am an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities,  of the UK Royal Historical Society.

I am Editor-in-Chief of the interdisciplinary journal Australian Feminist Studies published by Taylor & Francis, and serve on the editorial board of Humanities & Social Sciences Communications (Springer Nature).

From 2026-2028, I serve on the Australian Research Council's College of Experts.

From 2026, I am appointed Australian and New Zealand region delegate to the International Society for Medical History.

Publications and Public Contributions

Most of my publications, including my 2022 award-winning OUP monograph, can be freely downloaded from this academia page.

Some of my public media articles include:

'If We Are to Counter Medical Misogyny, Women Can No Longer Be Treated as Unreliabe Witnesses of Their Own Experience',The Guardian, June 7, 2026: 

‘Menopause was a French Invention at a Time of Revolution’, Psyche Magazine (Aeon Media Group Ltd),  July 30^th 2024.

‘More Health Scare than Healthcare for Women’, 360info, May 10^th 2024. Doi: 10.54377/49fe-0cd9.  republished in the Kathmandu Post,, May 18, 2024: 

‘Unnecessary Hysterectomies Still Happening in India, Elsewhere’ co-authored with Fouzieyha Towghi and Tinashe Dune. 360info, Special Report on Unnecessary Surgery, September 16, 2022. DOI: 10.54377/1923-09b1.

‘A Long History of Aphrodisiacs, from Health Tonic to Sexual Aid,’ Psyche Magazine (Aeon Media Group Ltd), May 19, 2021.