Department of Social Science, Health & Medicine launched

A new Department of Social Science, Health & Medicine at King's College London is officially launched today with the arrival of the incoming Head of Department, Nikolas Rose, Professor of Sociology. Professor Rose originally trained as a biologist before switching to psychology and then to sociology. After ten years at Goldsmiths College, where he was Head of Sociology and Pro-Warden for Research, he joined the London School of Economics in 2002 and was Convenor of the Department of Sociology from 2002 to 2006. He founded the BIOS Centre for the Study of Bioscience, Biomedicine, Biotechnology and Society at LSE, and was its Director since its inception in 2003. Professor Rose has published widely on the social and political history of the human sciences, on the genealogy of subjectivity, on the history of empirical thought in sociology, and on changing rationalities and techniques of political power, as well as on law and criminology. His current research concerns the social, political and legal dimensions of the life sciences and biomedicine, and has recently focussed on biological and genetic psychiatry and behavioural neuroscience. His study of the social implications of the rise of the new brain sciences will be published by Princeton University Press in 2012.