"The Physician's 'Negro': Comparative Racial Analysis in 19th-Century Medicine," a lecture by Evelynn M. Hammonds of Harvard University, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr., Day

Evelynn M. Hammonds, a Harvard University historian known nationally for her analyses of race and gender in science and medicine, will speak at the University of Rochester Medical Center on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, Monday, Jan. 17. She will discuss "The Physician's 'Negro': Comparative Racial Analysis in 19th-Century Medicine" at 1 p.m. in the Class of 1962 Auditorium (Room G-9425) in the Arthur Kornberg Medical Research Building.

Hammonds is the author of Childhood's Deadly Scourge: The Campaign to Control Diphtheria in New York City, 1880-1930 and co-editor of Gender and Scientific Authority. She has published articles on the history of disease, race, and science; African-American feminism; and Africa-American women and the epidemic of HIV/AIDS.

In her current work, Hammonds focuses on the intersection of scientific, medical, and socio-political concepts of race in the United States. She is completing two works, The Logic of Difference: A History of Race in Science and Medicine in the United States, 1850-1990 and the MIT Reader on Race and Gender in Science.

Before joining Harvard as professor of the history of science and of African and African-American Studies in 2002, Hammonds was a professor of the history of science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was the founding director of the MIT Center for the Study of Diversity of Science, Technology, and Medicine. She received undergraduate degrees in physics from Spelman College and in electrical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and a master's degree in physics from MIT. Hammonds worked as a software engineer for five years before returning to school and earning her doctorate in the history of science from Harvard in 1993.

Hammonds's talk is sponsored by the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, the School of Medicine and Dentistry Medical Education Office, the School of Nursing, the Department of History, the Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies, the Program in Health and Society, and the College Diversity Roundtable, with additional support from the Office of Minority Student Affairs and the Charles Drew Pre-Health Professions Society.

For more information, contact the Frederick Douglass Institute at (585) 275-7235.

About the University of Rochester

The University of Rochester (www.rochester.edu) is one of the nation's leading private universities. Located in Rochester, N.Y., the University gives students exceptional opportunities for interdisciplinary study and close collaboration with faculty through its unique cluster-based curriculum. Its College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering is complemented by the Eastman School of Music, Simon School of Business, Warner School of Education, Laboratory for Laser Energetics, Schools of Medicine and Nursing, and the Memorial Art Gallery.

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