Dr Helene Scott-Fordsmand

Helene Scott-Fordsmand is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science on a Carlsberg Foundation Internationalisation grant. She works on the project ‘Diagnosing bodies in a messy reality’ which explores the role of medical classification in clinical inquiry and the contrast between idealised categories and ‘messy’ human bodies.

Dr Scott-Fordsmand works as a philosopher on questions and topics related to unruly moments of medical inquiry, particularly within anatomical and orthopaedic contexts. She draws on methods from anthropology and science and technology studies, and she has collaborated with clinicians and artists on research, creative writing, and exhibition projects.

She earned her PhD from University of Copenhagen. Her doctoral research was carried out at Medical Museion – a university museum for medical history, culture, and research – and focused on the epistemic role of aversive emotions in clinical inquiry. She has published on medical humanities, emotions in medical practice, Julia Kristeva, and object relations in epistemic practice. From 2017-2019 she served as the chairwoman of the Danish Network for Women in Philosophy (now: Network for women and non-binaries in Philosophy).