Dr. Aaron Bradshaw

Qualifications

2019
Grad Cert Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK

2018
PhD Cellular Neuroscience, University College London, UK

2014
BSc With Industrial Experience Pharmacology, University of Leeds, UK

Career

From 09/2025
DFG Research Fellow, Society-Environment Research Group
Department of Geography, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg

Walter Benjamin Project: MicroFlows: Socio-microbial relations and urban water metabolism in the bacterial city (Link)

2023-2025
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Geography of Gender in Human-Environment-Systems
Department of Geography, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

2018-2022
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Department of Clinical and Movement Neurosciences, University College London, UK

My academic training and background is in the natural sciences. Now I am interested in the social, cultural, political, and material relations between humans and other-than-human forms of life, particularly microorganisms. I have a particular interest in the evolution of microbial ecologies in urban contexts, and the emergence of historically specific microbial communities that are attuned to anthropogenic conditions, especially pollutants. My research asks how humans have affected microbial evolution, and how microbial agency contributes to human societies. The urban realm has recently become of particular relevance to my research, as a site where human-microbial relations are particularly intense, heterogeneous, and dynamic. I am interested the environmental history of urban waterways – canals and rivers, and their roles in shaping urban evolution. Many of these sites now contain different forms of microbial ecologies, from sewerage works and water treatment plants to abandoned and degraded infrastructures which serve as ecological niches for emerging microbial communities.

See: Google Scholar