Oxford University announced Dec. 13 that its senior research fellow, Patricia Kingori has, this term, become one of the youngest women to be awarded a full professorship in Oxford’s 925-year history and the youngest Black professor at Oxford or Cambridge.
Professor Kingori, a sociologist based at Ethox Centre and the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, was awarded this historic distinction in recognition of the quality and global impact of her research on academia and beyond. Patricia is currently the recipient of a highly prestigious Wellcome Senior Investigator award and leads an interdisciplinary team of researchers exploring global concerns around Fakes, Fabrications and Falsehoods in the 21st Century. She has consistently obtained large and competitive funding grants, written frequently cited and impactful publications, supervised numerous DPhil students and taught hundreds of students during her time at Oxford.
Patricia Kingori has acted as an adviser to multiple organisations including the WHO, Save the Children, Medecins San Frontieres, the Nuffield Council of Bioethics and the Obama administration’s White House Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment in Africa Initiative. In 2020, Patricia became one of only six trustees of the Medical Research Foundation responsible for funding priorities from their £60 million budget.
Speaking of her promotion, Patricia Kingori said, ‘To have my body of work recognised in this way is a great honour, and I am deeply grateful to the many people who have inspired and supported me so far.’ Somerville’s Principal Baroness Jan Royall added, ‘Patricia has moved many mountains and shattered countless glass ceilings to secure this historic achievement. In the truest tradition of Somerville, she is a woman of firsts, a trailblazer. And yet, I have no doubt that where Patricia leads with such determination, implacable good humour and brilliance, others will follow.’
Patricia Kingori is a sociologist whose primary expertise lies in exploring the everyday ethical experiences of frontline workers in global health. Her research interests intersect the sociology of science and medicine, STS, bioethics and she has extensive experience of undertaking critical examinations of ethics in practice in different countries in Africa and South East Asia. This work has been supported through various funders, including the Wellcome Trust and the Grand Challenges Research Fund (GCRF).
Research
Patricia’s work to date has focused on the views, values and experiences of fieldworkers and other frontline research staff. She has published extensively in journals such as Social Science and Medicine and has guest edited several special issues on topics relating to global health, ethics and frontline workers. Examples of her work include a focus on everyday ethical experiences among: Fieldworkers in clinical trials in East and West Africa; WASH staff in Ebola treatment units in West Africa; A&E healthcare professionals in contexts of austerity in Greece and the UK; Ethical preparedness of frontline workers in humanitarian crises (RECAP); Frontline healthcare professionals and their concerns about COVID-19 vaccines.
In addition, Patricia Kingori currently leads a team of researchers exploring concerns around Fakes, Fabrications and Falsehoods in Global Health. This is a four-year Wellcome-funded Senior Investigator award which seeks to understand the people, places and processes involved in contemporary concerns about fakes in global health.
Supervision and teaching
Patricia Kingori is joint module lead on the International Research Ethics, MSc in Global Health Science and Epidemiology, and a DPhil supervisor for Frances Butcher, Kate Enright, Francis Kombe and Scholastica Zakayo. She also mentors early career researchers at Ethox/WEH and undergraduates at Somerville College, Oxford.
Patricia Kingori is a member of the Global Health Bioethics Network and leads the qualitative research support for early-career researchers in low-income countries including Malawi, South Africa, Cambodia and Kenya. She is also a member of the core project management team for the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities and also for the Oxford Wellcome Centre-Johns Hopkins Berman Institute Global Infectious Disease Ethics (GLIDE) Collaborative. Patricia plays a central role in the Wellcome Humanities and Social Science Centres Collaboration which brings together Centres in Oxford, Exeter, Durham and Edinburgh.
Service
Patricia Kingori is a member of the Central University Research Ethics Committee (CUREC), and serves on various funding committees and review groups, including for Wellcome and UKRI. Patricia is also a trustee of the Medical Research Foundation and sits on the SAGE SPI-B which provides independent, expert behavioural science advice to the UK government in relation to COVID-19.
Patricia Kingori is committed to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion issues in academia. She is currently leading several initiatives, at Somerville College and the WEH, including a visiting scholarship for Black academics to the University of Oxford and a student internships scheme aimed at increasing diversity. Patricia also contributed to the Wellcome Trust’s Reimagine Research initiative in 2020.
Patricia Kingori was awarded a Merit Award by the University of Oxford. In 2015, Patricia was awarded a place on the prestigious Powerlist in recognition of her position as among <1% of Black British female academics employed by an Oxbridge institution.
