Mikkel Bruun

Dr Mikkel Kenni Bruun is a social anthropologist whose work examines the intersections of public health, digital technology, and evidence-based practices. He has conducted long-term ethnographic research on various aspects of mental healthcare in the UK, with a particular focus on the provision of psychological healthcare in the NHS, community-based mental health initiatives, and the digitalisation of psychotherapy. 

Dr Bruun is a Research Associate at The Healthcare Improvement Studies (THIS) Institute in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at Cambridge University. 

He earned his PhD in Social Anthropology (2019) at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and holds an MRes in Medical Anthropology from University College London (2014). At Cambridge, he currently teaches across several courses, including ethnographic methods, medical anthropology, gender studies, and anthropological theory.

He is also an affiliated researcher at King’s College London, where he has contributed to an ERC-funded project (2021–2024) investigating contemporary forms of surveillance in Germany and Britain. His most recent research explores practices of health monitoring in the UK based on fieldwork with users of self-tracking wearables and apps designed to promote fitness and wellbeing.

His earlier research examined professional practices within the NHS Talking Therapies (formerly IAPT) and community mental health services in London, which included a study of how evidence-based psychological therapy is enacted and experienced across educational, clinical, and everyday contexts of care.

Dr Bruun’s work consistently engages with critical questions in the anthropology of science, medical anthropology, and mental health research, with a strong commitment to advancing anthropology’s contribution to healthcare improvement. 

He is the co-editor of Towards an Anthropology of Psychology: Ethnographic Studies of Psychological Healthcare (Berghahn Books, 2025) and Rhythm and Vigilance: Ethnographies of Surveillance and Time (Bristol University Press, 2025).

Affiliations:

• THIS Institute, Cambridge Department of Public Health and Primary Care
• Surveillance and Moral Community: Anthropologies of Monitoring in Germany and Britain (SAMCOM)
• Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London
• Cambridge Department of Social Anthropology