Jules Alexander Skotnes Brown

Jules Alexander Skotnes Brown is a Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews, affiliated with the Department of Social Anthropology. His work focuses on the history of science, medicine, and the environment, particularly exploring connections between animals, disease, knowledge production, and colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries. He currently leads the Wellcome Trust-funded project The Global War Against the Rat and the Epistemic Emergence of Zoonosis, examining the entangled histories of zoonosis, colonialism, capitalism, and species invasiveness through the lens of rat control. His PhD from the University of Cambridge (2017–2020) formed the basis of his first book, Segregated Species: Boundaries, Pests and Knowledge in South Africa, 1910–48, which analyzes how pest control practices reinforced racial hierarchies in colonial South Africa.

His research interests include the intersections of science and imperialism, the role of animals in colonial governance, and the socio-environmental legacies of colonial policies. Notable contributions include studies on plague control in Namibia, the role of vernacular experts in Zululand, and the global history of invasive species. Brown has received prestigious awards such as the Best Dissertation in Cohort Prize from the Oxford History Faculty and the Science Museum Group Writing Prize.

He actively participates in academic conferences and has organized events like Zoonosis as a Historical and Anthropological Question (2025) and Invasive Species and Shifting Disease Ecologies (2022). His work contributes to UN Sustainable Development Goals related to environmental sustainability and social justice.