I’m currently writing my second monograph, Medical Photography in Nineteenth-Century France, funded by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2025-26), and I’m Principal Investigator of “The Ethics of Medical Photography Network”, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (2024-26).

My first monograph, Picturing the Western Front. Photography, Practices and Experiences in First World War France (Manchester University Press, 2021), examined how photographic practices shaped how combatants and civilians felt and experienced the war. In 2019, I co-edited the volume Emotional Bodies. The Historical Performativity of Emotions (University of Illinois Press) with Dolores Martin-Moruno.  I have also published in academic journals such as History of Photography, History of the Human Sciences, Journal of War and Culture Studies, Media History and others. I have recently published a chapter on ethical strategies to teach with images in the collective volume Do Less Harm. Ethical Questions for Health Historians (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2025), edited by Courtney E Thompson and Kylie M Smith.

I’m always happy to share my research speaking in academic and non-academic events, and writing for different audiences.

Hello!

I’m Dr Beatriz Pichel, an interdisciplinary researcher working across history, photography, medicine and ethics.

I’m an Associate Professor (Reader) at the Photographic History Research Centre (PHRC) at De Montfort University, Leicester (UK).

My teaching collection of cameras and photographs