Kelly Couzens

Dr Kelly-Ann (Kelly) Couzens is an Australian-born historian of criminal and forensic history. In 2019 she graduated with a PhD in History from the University of Western Australia. Kelly’s thesis, entitled: Medicine on Trial: Medical Testimony and Forensic Expertise in the Scottish High Court of Justiciary, c. 1822 – 1906 explored the history of forensic medicine and professional claims of medico-legal authority in trials for violent crimes in Victorian Edinburgh.

Kelly worked as a Research Assistant on Professor Chloe Kennedy's AHRC-funded project 'Identity Deception: A Critical History' in the School of Law at the University of Edinburgh between February 2020 to March 2021 . From June 2021 to June 2024 she was based in the History Department at the University of Warwick as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the Wellcome-funded project 'The Last Taboo of Motherhood? Postnatal Mental Disorders in 20th Century Britain', led by Professor Hilary Marland.

Kelly’s work can be seen in the journal History (2019 edition) and in Alison Adam’s 2020 edited collection, Crime and the Construction of Forensic Objectivity from 1850. Most recently, she has contributed a chapter on the historical development of the Infanticide Act, 1938 in the edited collection, Women's Legal Landmarks in the Interwar Years: Not For Want of Trying  (Hart, 2024) and an article in Medical History (2025). She is also currently working on a book for Palgrave, entitled: The Victorian Police Surgeon: A History of Crime and Forensic Medicine. 

Kelly is an Honorary Research Fellow in the History Department at the University of Western Australia. Her research interests include histories of medicine, law, crime and the press, as well as interdisciplinary research methods or approaches to the past.