What links a mug, a face mask, Ibuprofen, and toothpaste?

The half-day event spotlighted research being done by group members from across the career span in three thematic areas – Place, Knowledge, and Materials. The morning started, chaired by Dr Jonathan Wistow, with Dr Jon Warren talking about his research on Teesside and how its biography (because, as Jon told us, places can have biographies as well as people) shapes health experiences. Profs Brian Castellani and Dave Byrne offered some responses to this, especially about echoes with the US context and how intergenerational inequality plays a part.

Early career researchers from the group were up next to talk about the theme of knowledge. In this session, we heard from Dr Alina Geampana on fertility tracking apps; Dr Jordan Mullard on Long Covid and race inequalities; Dr Angela Marques Filipe on STS multimodal methods; Salman Khan on “The Knowledge” test that London taxis drivers take; and our visiting researcher Dr Alma Linkeviciute on cancer care in pregnancy.

Then finally, we ended the session with two talks, from Dr Kimberly Jamie and Professor Tiago Moreira on, respectively, the sociology of clay and the use of bacterial walks to sense (see, touch, hear, taste, feel) the marks that bacteria leave upon the world. And, in this session, we finally got to find out what links a mug, a face mask, Ibuprofen, and toothpaste? Clay, the answer is clay.

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