Upcoming

I’ll be presenting “Anthropology, Acculturation, and Indigenous Capitalism in the Alaskan Arctic” as part of a panel titled “Approaching Détente in Uncertain Times: Historians of Anthropology Encounter Historians of the Human Sciences” at the History of Science Society Annual Meeting in Mérida, Mexico in November 2024.

Media Appearances

In an episode of CBC’s Ideas podcast, I joined a distinguished group of Indigenous scientists and scholars to discuss the complex ethical issues that surround biobanks and Indigenous biodata sovereignty. Joanna Radin and I provide some historical context and explain how collections of Indigenous blood came to be so central to our biomedical research infrastructure, in Canada and around the world. You can check it out here: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/15868796-body-language-or-indigenous-biodata

In an episode of the Intervals podcast, produced the the Organization of American Historians, I discussed the tuberculosis epidemic that tore through mid-century Alaska. In particular, I emphasize the ways that anti-Indigenous racism, Cold War politics, and settler colonialism shaped the epidemic and highlight the resilience of Alaska Native communities in response to both disease and colonial violence. You can listen here: https://open.spotify.com/show/08iqMC5nJBM28zD6rFmWEl or access a transcript here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A3QJOBxZmP8ORt0e7hTggm0aN0aYED97/view

Selected PAST

2023. “A Lab at the Top of the World: Imagining Alaska in the Early Cold War.” Conference of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Arlington, VA.
2022. “Unsettling Biomedicine: Indigenous Health and American Empire in Postwar Alaska.” History and Sociology of Science Workshop Series, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.
2022. “The Last Biomedical Frontier: Indigenous Health and Settler Colonialism in Cold War Alaska.” Klopsteg Lecture Series, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.
2021. Panelist. “Gatekeeping & the Publishing Landscape for Scholarship on Race, Medicine & Science.” The Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO.
2021. “Retrospective Ethics and the Unsettled History of the International Biological Program in Nunavut.” 4S Annual Meeting, Toronto, ON.
2021. “Never-ending Trials: Recursive Research in Baruch Blumberg’s Alaska.” American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA.
2020. “Psychological Fallout: Radiation, Iñupiat Sovereignty, and Historical Reckoning in the Alaskan Arctic." Social and Behavioral Sciences Seminar Series, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON.
2020. Roundtable Speaker. “Settler Colonialism and Postcolonialism in the History of Science and Technology,” History of Science Society Virtual Forum.
2019. “Psychological Fallout: Cold War Radiation Experiments and Reckoning with History in the Alaskan Arctic.” History of Medicine Week, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON.
2019. “Frontiers of Opportunity: Gender, Whiteness, and the Politics of Expertise in Alaska’s Tuberculosis Epidemic, 1945-1970.” Canadian Historical Association Annual Meeting, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC.
2019. “Blood is Thicker Than Politics: Biomedical Research, Indigenous Rights, and the Birth of a Bioeconomy in Cold War Alaska.” Biocolonialism: Perspectives from the Humanities, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK.
2019. “Alcohol, Oil, and ‘Eskimo Capitalists’: Debating the Psychological Impact of Indigenous Self-Determination in the Alaskan Arctic, 1979-1984.” Decolonising Madness: Birth of a "Global Psyche" in the Aftermath of the Second World War, Birkbeck University of London, London, UK.
2018. “A Lab at the Top of the World: Transforming Tuberculosis Treatment in Cold War Alaska.” Beaumont Medical Club, Yale University, New Haven, CT.
2017. “Psychological Fallout: Radiation, Indigeneity, and Cold War Memories in the Alaskan Arctic.” History of Science Society Annual Meeting, Toronto, ON.
2017. “Alcohol, Oil and “Eskimo Capitalists”: Contesting the Barrow Alcoholism Study, 1979-1984." Annual Meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine, Nashville, TN.
2016. “Melting the Ice Curtain: Indigeneity and Circumpolar Health in the Era of Glasnost.” Cold Science: Arctic Science in North America During the Cold War, 1945-1991." Trent University, Peterborough, ON.
2016. “Human Survival in a Hostile Climate: Indigeneity and Colonial BioScience in Cold War Alaska.” Native American and Indigenous Studies Association Annual Meeting, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI.
2016. “Crops of the Vaccine Virus: Production, Pedigree, and Purity on American Vaccine Farms, 1870-1902.” American Society for Environmental History Annual Conference, Seattle, WA.
2016. “A Lab at the Top of the World: Circumpolar Health and Indigenous Politics in Cold War Alaska.” Consortium for the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology, Philadelphia, PA.
2015. “Melting the Ice Curtain: Indigeneity and the Alaska-Siberia Medical Research Program, 1983-1989.” Cold War Indigeneity in Science and Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, CT.
2014. “Arctic Medicine, Epidemiology, and “Eskimo” Blood: The Beginnings of Indigenous Biomedical Communities in Alaska.” 4S/ESOCITE Joint Annual Meeting, Buenos Aires, AR.
2013. “From the “People’s Vaccine” to the Alaska Area Specimen Bank: Alaska Native People’s and the Making of Indigenous Biomedical Knowledge.” Transnational Futures of Indigenous History, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
2013. “The Cold War on Alcoholism: Gender, Politics and the Shaping of American Alcoholism, 1950-1966.” Canadian Society for the History of Medicine Annual Meeting, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC.
2011. “Before Betty Ford: Explaining the Panic Over Female Alcoholism, 1965-1980,” Annual Meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine. Philadelphia, PA.
2011. “Before Betty Ford: Explaining the Panic Over Female Alcoholism, 1965-1980.” International Conference on the History of Alcohol and Drugs, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY.