Staff Profile

My background is in medical anthropology and the social anthropology of South Asia and Tibet. Previously I have worked at Edinburgh University teaching anthropology, as co-ordinator of the programmes in the Center for South Asian Studies, and as part of a team of researchers looking at access to medicines in India, Uganda and South Africa.

I have also worked as Research Associate at Cardiff University on a research project focusing on a Tibetan medical hospital and school in west Tibet, and traditional medical practice in northeast Tibet. Before coming to Newcastle I worked in the Global Health Unit at Queen Mary University of London, first as Research Fellow in Social and Cultural Aspects of Clinical Trials and then as Senior Lecturer in Medical Anthropology and co-ordinator of the BSc in Global Health and the intercalated BSc in Global Health. I am currently Senior Lecturer in Medical Anthropology and a member of Newcastle’s recently established Centre of Research Excellence in Regulatory Science.

Recent Academic Positions

2017 to present External Examiner, UCL, Global Health Summer School

2015-19 External Examiner, UCL, iBSc Global Health

2014-17 Senior Lecturer in Medical Anthropology in the Global Health Unit at Queen Mary University of London. Co-ordinator of BSc in Global Health and intercalated BSc in Global Health. 

2013-14 Research Fellow, Social and Cultural Aspects of Clinical Trials, Global Health Unit, Blizzard Institute, Queen Mary University of London

2012-13 Research Fellow, Accessing Medicines in Africa and South Asia (AMASA), a 3 year research project funded under the European Union’s Framework 7, Centre for South Asian Studies, Edinburgh University

2011-13 Senior Tutor and Course Organiser and Lecturer for South Asian Studies in the Centre for South Asian Studies, Edinburgh University

I have carried out extensive fieldwork in Nepal, India and Tibet on various aspects of traditional medical practice, the use of ritual in healing, the Bon religion of Tibet, and forms social and political identity, mostly in the Himalayan region. I carried out my first fieldwork on patterns of pluralistic health care in Ladakh, the north-east Himalayan region of the Indian State of Kashmir and Jammu in 1992. In 1996 I carried out 18 months fieldwork on learning processes in a Tibetan medical school and health care practices in the Tibetan medicine clinic in the valley of Dhorpatan in the Baglung district of west Nepal. From 2002, I carried out research over a period 2 years in clinics of Tibetan medicine in the United Kingdom. In 2008 I was awarded a grant by the Leverhulme Trust for £150,256 to carry out a 3 year project on ‘Tradition and Modernity in a Bon Medical School and Hospital in West Tibet (£150,256). In 2012, I was employed at Edinburgh University as Research Fellow, on a 3 year research project funded under the European Union’s Framework 7, Accessing Medicines in Africa and South Asia (AMASA). The research focused on the supply chain of six essential medicines in South Africa, Uganda and India. In the last decade my research has increasingly focused on the social and cultural aspects of medical technologies, access to medicine, medicine regulation and global health.

Research Expertise

• Global Health and Global Health Governance
• Anthropology of Pharmaceuticals
• The regulation of Medical Technologies
• Asian Medicine
• Complementary and Alternative Medicines
• Social Networks
• The Anthropology of Tibet and South Asia

At Queen Mary University of London I led modules on: Medicines and Pharmaceuticals; Health Illness and Society; and Migration, Culture and Advanced Social Determinants of health. I also had a key role in course administration as co-ordinator of the BSc in Global, one of the first undergraduate Global Health programmes in the UK, and co-ordinator of the intercalated BSc in Global Health.

At Newcastle from 2017-2019 I was Deputy Director of Excellence in Learning and Teaching. I am currently module lead for the Global Heath Policy and Medicine Use module, which is taught as part of the public health suite of programmes and as part of the regulatory science stream of the Masters in Biomedical Engineering

Supervision

I am currently supervising 3 PhD students. I am happy to supervise new research students whose projects are within my research expertise.

• Millard C, Kadam AB, Mahajan R, Pollock AM, Brhlikova P. Availability of brands of six essential medicines in 124 pharmacies in Maharashtra. Journal of Global Health 2018, 8(1), 010402.
• Millard C, Brhlikova P, Pollock A. Social networks and health policy: The case of misoprostol and the WHO model essential medicine list. Social Science and Medicine 2015, 132, 190-196.
• Millard C. Two Bon Nagpa Healing Rituals in Mustang. In: Ramble, C; Roesler, U, ed. Tibetan and Himalayan Healing: an Anthology for Anthony Aris. Vajra Books, 2015.
• Millard C, Pollock AM, Brhlikova P. Commentary: Evidence versus influence in the WHO procedure for approving essential medicines: misoprostol for maternal health. BMJ 2014, 349, g4823.
• Millard C. Bon Medical Practitioners in Contemporary Tibet: The Continuity of a Tradition. East Asian Science, Technology and Society 2013, 7(3), 353-379.
• Millard C. Bon Religion in Reb kong. In: Dhondup,Y. Pagel,U. Samuel,G, ed. Monastic and Lay Traditions in North-Eastern Tibet. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
• Soktsang LD, Millard C. Diversity in Unity: The Changing Forms of Tibetan Medicine. East Asian Science, Technology and Society 2013, 7(13).
• Millard C. Democracy and Dissent in Nepal: An Overview With Some Perceptions from the Valley of Dhorpatan. In: Gellner, D, ed. Resistance and the State in Nepal. 2002.
• Millard C. Essential medicines are missing from Maharashtra’s pharmacies. The Swaddle, 2018. Available at: https://theswaddle.com/essential-medicines-are-missing-from-maharashtras-pharmacies/.
• Millard C. Illness Narratives and Idioms of Meaning in Two Tibetan Medical Clinics, forthcoming. In: Schrempf, M; Craig, A; Garrett, F; Tshomo, M, ed. Medicine, Health, and Modernity: Proceedings from the XIth International Association of Tibetan Studies Meetings. Bonn: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, Contributions to Research on Central Asia Series, 2010.
• Millard C. The Life and Medical Legacy of Khyung sprul ’Jig med nam-mkha’i rdo rje (1897-1955). East and West (special edition, New Horizons in Bon Studies vol 2) IsIAO, Rome 2009.
• Millard C. The Integration of Tibetan Medical Practice in the UK: the Clinics of the Tara Institute of Tibetan Medicine. In: Pordie, L, ed. Tibetan Medicine in the Contemporary World: Global Politics of Medical Knowledge and Practice. 2008.
• Millard C. Tibetan Medicine and the Classification and Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders. In: Schrempf, M, ed. Soundings in Tibetan Medicine: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives, Proceedings of the 10th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies 2003. 2007. In Preparation.
• Millard C. Tibetan Medicine in the Context of Changing European Legislation on Herbal Medicine and Statutory Legislation. The Journal of Traditional Tibetan Medicine 2007, 1(1).
• Millard C. 2006 sMan and gLud: Standard Tibetan Medicine and Ritual Medicine in a Bon Medical School and Clinic in Nepal . The Tibet Journal, Special Edition on Tibetan Medicine (guest eds.) A. Boesi and F. Cardi 2006.
• Millard C. Democracy and Dissent in Nepal: an Overview with Some Perceptions from the Valley of Dhorpatan. In: Gellner, D, ed. Resistance and the State in Nepal. New Delhi: Social Science Press. (New edition 2006 from Berghahn, Oxford and New York), 2002. In Preparation.