Sanjoy Bhattacharya is Co-Director of the History Department’s Centre for Global Health Histories, Professor in the History of Medicine, a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator and the Head of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Global Health Histories at the University of York. Sanjoy specialises in the health, medical, political and social history of nineteenth and twentieth century South Asia, as well as the history and contemporary workings of international and global health organisations, and their programmes around the world.
Sanjoy has always worked in inter-disciplinary ways and within inter-sectoral settings, and remains actively involved in health policy research and evaluation work in national and international agencies. He is a co-founder of the World Health Organization’s Global Health Histories project (GHH), which works across the WHO HQ in Geneva, WHO Regional Offices in Copenhagen and Cairo, and multiple WHO Country Offices. As an official and audited WHO activity, GHH carries out research to assist policy initiatives and public engagement at WHO member state level, and organises a regular programme of seminars and workshops. This work, carried out over two decades, has consistently created impactful partnerships globally, involving WHO frameworks, other UN agencies, national and local governments, NGOs, Civil Society Organisations and universities.
Sanjoy is editor of the journal Medical History, a world leading publication in its field. Published by Cambridge University Press, with generous support from the Wellcome Trust, Medical History showcases cutting-edge scholarship and fosters interest in the history of medicine and health worldwide. Cambridge University Press also appointed Sanjoy editor of a new monograph series titled Global Health Histories in October 2013. He also co-edits, with Dr. Niels Brimnes (Aarhus) and Dr. Nitin Sinha (Berlin), New Perspectives in South Asian History, which is an established series of monographs, published by Orient Blackswan India Ltd since 2001.