School of Social and Political Science

Background

I am an ethnographer of biomedicine, broadly interested in the politics of healthcare systems and biomedicine, with particular attention to non-clinical professional roles. 

Currently, I am a postdoctoral research fellow on the Wellcome Trust-funded project "Encountering genes: postfware genetic counselling in the UK and Ireland", led by Dr Jenny Bangham. 

Doctoral research

I hold a PhD in Science and Technology Studies (STS) from the University of Edinburgh. My thesis is titled 'Optimising antibiotics in the Spanish public hospital: Professional belonging, collective consciousness and power at the edge of intervention (September 2025). The thesis is based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork and extensive historical research observing the development of antimicrobial stewardship -or Programas para la Optimización del Uso de Antimicrobianos (PROA)- in the Spanish healthcare system. 

My work centers on the PROA as an exemplary medical programme where multiple healthcare professions converge, find alliances, put boundaries, imagine and implement a collective intervention to optimise the use of antimicrobial drugs whilst, in the background, the threat of ever-rising antimicrobial resistance (AMR) makes resistant infections more prevalent, causing harder-to-treat infections more commonplace in hospitalised patient populations. Through an attention to emotional registers, political relations and historical continuities, it shows how a group of PROA practitioners build a network based on apprenticeship, friendship, material practices and notions of collective consciousness. The thesis problematises the yearning for a collective, distributed and shared practice of health care in an otherwise hierarchical and individually-oriented biomedical system.

My doctoral training was largely support by an Alice Brown Fellowship (2019-2025). Alongside, I have received awards and funding to support my research and academic training, including an Erasmus+ Staff Mobility teaching and training grant (2023) and a Saltire Early Career Scholar Fellowship from the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE)(2022). I received a Postgraduate Student Excellence Award from the School of Humanities for my performance during my Masters studies in medical anthropology at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (2017).

I also hold a MSc in medical anthropology and global health from  Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona and Universitat de Barcelona, and a BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Sciences (Infectious Disease) from the University of Edinburgh. 

Further academic experience

As part of my professional training as an Alice Brown scholar, I have taken part in different academic projects within the School of Social and Political Science. Some of these included: 

• Research associate, ERC The Epidemy project (STIS) (2021-2025)
• Research assistant, Future Organisms project (STIS) (2024-2025)
• Journal managing editor, Medicine Anthropology Theory (MAT) journal, edited by scholars at the Edinburgh Centre for Medical Anthropology (EdCMA) (2020-2024)
• Research assistant, 'Domesticating Covid-19 Epidemiological Models' project, Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society (CBSS) (2020)
• Archival researcher associate, student-led decolonial project UncoverED (2019-2020)

Between 2019 and 2025, I was a graduate affiliate member of the Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society, Usher Institute (Medical School) and the student group Students of Medical Anthropology (SoMA) at the Edinburgh Centre for Medical Anthropology (EdCMA). 

Teaching 

I have over five years of experience as a tutor and marker in multiple courses at the School of Social and Political Sciences, including: History of Science (STIS, 2023-24), History of Western Medicine (STIS, 2020, 2021, 2023) Investigating Science in Society (STIS, 2021-22), Contagion (Social Anthropology, 2020-21) and Science, Nature and Environment (STIS, 2019-20). I have also delivered guest lectures on infectious diseases, AMR and the colonial history of science at the University in several courses delivered by staff at STIS. I have also been a project supervisor (projects on AMR as a future challenge of medicine) for the Social and Ethical Aspects of Medicine (SEAM) component of the 2nd year of the medical degree at the Medical School (2022-24).

Selected Peer-reviewed Publications

Moreno Lozano, C. In Press. Mapping the hospital: Epidemiology, infection, and antibiotic governance at the Clínica Puerta de Hierro, Madrid, Spain'. Science, Technology & Human Values.

Kirchhelle, C., ... Moreno Lozano, C. ... Chandler, C. Forthcoming. ‘(Un)intended Consequences: A Social Sciences Stocktake of a Decade of Global Action Plan-inspired Antimicrobial Governance’ (in review with Lancet Microbe, October 2025). Pre-print: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5272915. 

Moreno Lozano, C. 2024. 'The imperative of teamwork in antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) interventions: Insights from an ethnography with practitioners in Spain.' JAC-Antimicrobial Resistance, Volume 6, Issue 5, October 2024, dlae133, https://doi.org/10.1093/jacamr/dlae133.

Engelmann, L., Montgomery, C., Sturdy, S. and Moreno Lozano, C. 2022. 'Domesticating models: How models became performative in the UK COVID-19 pandemic.' Social Studies of Science https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312722112616