Sarah Marks

Sarah Marks is a Senior Lecturer and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at the School of Historical Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. She directs the Birkbeck Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Mental Health and serves as an Academic Governor on the Birkbeck Governing Body (2023–26). Her research spans history, social sciences, and policy, with a focus on science, medicine, and mental health in Central and Eastern Europe (19th–21st centuries), Sub-Saharan Africa (20th–21st), and the Cold War era.

• PhD in History of Medicine (UCL, 2015)
• MA in History of Medicine (UCL, 2009)
• MRes in East European Studies (UCL, 2008)
• BA in History (UCL, 2006)

Marks' research integrates interdisciplinary mental health studies and science and technology studies, with a focus on psychotherapies, biomedical and psychological interventions, and the social histories of science. Her work has been supported by major grants from the Wellcome Trust and UKRI, including a Wellcome Collaborative Award (2021–25) and a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (2019–26) for projects like Connecting Three Worlds and Cognitive Behavioural Therapies: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. She also explores topics such as aversion therapy, psychedelic research, and mental health policy.

Marks' publications emphasize the intersection of science and medicine with political and cultural contexts, particularly in socialist and post-colonial regions. Her recent work includes collaborative studies on genetics, heredity, and LGBTQ+ mental health legacies, with articles in Review of General Psychology and Wellcome Open Research.

Scientific recognition:

• UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Supervision: She supervises PhD students across Birkbeck's School of Historical Studies and School of Social Sciences, with completed theses on intelligence testing, community mental health, and psychotherapy in the US and Western Europe. Current projects include studies on Nordic degeneration theory and psychoanalysis in Ireland.

Outreach and public engagement: Marks collaborates with artists, clinicians, and lived experience advocates, notably through the Psychotechne exhibition (2023) and the Wellcome-funded Hidden Persuaders project (2017–19), which produced the Wunderblock exhibition and youth filmmaking workshops.