Heather McMullen is a lecturer in Global Public Health at Queen Mary University of London. She has a background in medical social science and specialises in sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice. She has also worked in this area with civil society and multilateral organisations such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). Heather was a National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Doctoral Fellow and her work explored rapid HIV testing and the pragmatic randomised controlled trial (RCT). Her work explored the construction of evidence and the assumptions of the pragmatic trial methodology. The doctoral research demonstrated how different modes of inquiry revealed contrasting versions of the research event, raising questions about the logic of the RCT and its reproducibility. More fundamentally it explored ontology, pragmatism, and the tension between situated and generalisable findings.
Heather has recently begun exploring how climate change and other environmental crises relate to sexual and reproductive rights, health, and politics. She is interested in how these intersections are framed in global policy and advocacy but also how they are experienced by people in regard to their own bodies and reproduction. Heather has been leading on a study exploring ‘BirthStrike for Climate’ and other groups who are collectivising and advocating for climate action through the frame of reproduction. Heather is a co-lead on the In/Fertile Environments project with Katharine Dow.
