My ongoing research interests concern the historical, cultural and rural geographies of mental ill-health, supplemented by scholarship in the following fields as well: social geographies of 'outsiders'; children's geographies; new animal geographies; historical and contemporary figurations of public space; Foucauldian studies; the history, historiography and theoretical development of geography. I have recently brought together much of my historical research on 'madness' and asylums in a substantial book-length treatment: Philo, C. 2004. A Geographical History of Institutional Provison for the Insane from Medieval Times to the 1860s in England and Wales: The Space Reserved for Insanity. Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston and Queenston, USA, and Lampeter, Wales UK (712 pages).I gained a Degree in Geography from the University of Cambridge in 1983, and a PhD from the same institution in 1992 (yes, it took me a while!). I was a PhD student and then a Research Fellow in Cambridge from 1983 to 1989, and then my first lecturing post was in the Department of Geography at the University of Wales, Lampeter, starting in January 1989. I was appointed to a Chair in Geography at the University of Glasgow in 1995, starting in October that year, and it has been my pleasure to research and teach at this institution ever since.

From April 2002 to July 2005, I was Head of the Department (of Geography and Geomatics). From 1st August 2005, I have gone back into 'the ranks'. From January 2005, I have been enlisted to the Geography and Environmental Studies RAE Sub-Panel.