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Staff profile

Overview

Dr Angela Marques Filipe

Associate Professor

(Lic. PhD FHEA)

Affiliations
AffiliationTelephone
Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology
Affiliate Member in the International Centre for Moral Injury
Fellow of the Institute for Medical Humanities
Fellow of the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing

Biography

I am a sociologist of science, medicine, and mental health, with a special interest in how contested conditions and concepts are understood and negotiated in everyday life. I explore this question through a combination of global historical perspectives and empirically in-depth case studies that illuminate how lived experiences of care, vulnerability, and wellbeing are embodied, embedded in living environments, mobilised in collective social struggles, and translated into policy and practice. 

I am Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Durham University, where I was also Co-Director of the Institute for Medical Humanities. In 2025, I founded an interdisciplinary research theme bringing the medical and environmental humanities and social sciences into dialogue, which I currently co-lead, with colleagues in Anthropology and Geography. My current project, Reframing Eco-anxiety, is funded by the Leverhulme Trust; during which I am on research leave and visiting the University of Edinburgh.

Before joining Durham, I held a post at McGill University where I co-led two major research grants and labs focusing on aspects of embodiment and ecosocial environments in childhood neurodisability and mental health vulnerability, and later as member of the Wellcome-funded international network on biosocial research. My long-term study of ADHD was the first to examine the global histories and social lives of its diagnosis, treatment, and critique beyond the English-speaking world and in Southern Europe. This work has informed the co-edited volume Global Perspectives on ADHD, the establishment of the Portuguese Mental Health Observatory, and, more recently, the development of research links with colleagues in Spain, Japan, Norway, and Chile.

I bring this extensive international experience – and my interdisciplinary training from LSHTM, King's College London, and University of Coimbra – into my own approach to inclusive research culture, as well as student supervision and staff mentoring and coaching. Externally, I serve on the editorial board of Sociology of Health & Illness and on the Wellcome Trust's Early-Career Awards and Interviews Panel, and as co-convenor of the climate, environment, and society group of the British Sociological Association.

Research areas and awards

Breaking disciplinary silos, and crossing institutional and national boundaries, my research projects and awards reflect three main areas of interest:

1. Eco-anxiety and climate mental health. My current work develops a sociology of climate mental health and explores the ethics and politics of eco-anxiety and eco-emotion among scientific, therapeutic, and activist communities. More broadly, this project reconnects conceptual strands and fundamental questions concerning knowledge, care, agency, and valued that run across sociology, philosophy, and psychology with the aim of setting a critical research agenda on the changing climates of environ/mental health. Funded by the Leverhulme Trust and British Academy ECRN.

2. Knowledge co-production and interdisciplinary collaboration in science/society. I study how knowledge is co-produced at the nexus of science and society, focusing on how translational models of embodiment, environmental exposure, and neurobiological vulnerability travel across domains and into practice and policy. This research area includes collaborative projects on health activism, co-production,and research engagement; on environmental adversity and exposure in epigenetics and biosocial research; and on ecosocial theories of health, disease risk, disability, and vulnerability. Funded by the European Commission, Canadian Institutes for Health Research, and Wellcome Trust. 

3. The social lives of ADHD and youth mental health in global perspective. I examine the social lives of ADHD diagnosis, treatment, and history in Portugal and Southern Europe, as well as in the global context, charting wider cultural, ethical and digital reconfigurations of attention, care, and neurodivergent experience. You can read some of my work in Portuguese and French, and explore the book Global Perspectives on ADHD (Johns Hopkins U. Press). Funded by the Wenner-Gren and the Portuguese Science & Technology Foundations; awarded the 2018 Rising Star Prize by FRQSC Canada and the KCL Elsevier Prize for Outstanding PhD Thesis.

Publications

Book review

Chapter in book

  • Situer la vie sociale des TDAH: Entre le médical, le local et le global
    Rojas Navarro, S., & Filipe, A. M. (2023). Situer la vie sociale des TDAH: Entre le médical, le local et le global. In C. L. Vieira, C. Yves, & P. M. M. Renata (Eds.), L’attention médicamentée: La Ritaline à l’école (pp. 57-76). PUR.
  • Bioética [bioethics]
    Ferreira, P., & Filipe, A. M. (2019). Bioética [bioethics]. In ALICE Dictionary. CES/ALICE.
  • ADHD in a global context: An introduction
    Bergey, M., & Filipe, A. M. (2018). ADHD in a global context: An introduction. In M. R. Bergey, A. M. Filipe, P. Conrad, & I. Singh (Eds.), Global Perspectives on ADHD: Social Dimensions of Diagnosis and Treatment in Sixteen Countries (pp. 1-8). Johns Hopkins University Press. https://doi.org/10.1353/book.56717
  • The emergence and shaping of ADHD in Portugal: Ambiguities of a diagnosis “In the making”
    Filipe, A. M. (2018). The emergence and shaping of ADHD in Portugal: Ambiguities of a diagnosis “In the making”. In M. R. Bergey, A. M. Filipe, P. Conrad, & I. Singh (Eds.), Global Perspectives on ADHD: Social Dimensions of Diagnosis and Treatment in Sixteen Countries (pp. 118-137). Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • Biopolitics
    Filipe, A. M. (2014). Biopolitics. In The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Health, Illness, Behavior, and Society. Editors: W. C. Cockerham, R. Dingwall, S. Quah (pp. 142-145). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118410868.wbehibs255
  • Coletivos sociais na saúde: o ativismo em torno das doenças raras e do parto em Portugal
    Filipe, A. M., Roriz, M., Neves, D., Matias, M., & Nunes, J. A. (2014). Coletivos sociais na saúde: o ativismo em torno das doenças raras e do parto em Portugal (pp. 175-194). CES Almedina.

Edited book

Journal Article

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

Supervision students

Andrea Olmos Talonia

Postgraduate Fellow

Emma Gratte

Postgraduate Research Student

Patricia Bartley