Ellen J. Amster
Associate Professor and Jason A. Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine
McMaster University
Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Department of History
Health Sciences Building 3H3, Department of CE and B
Chester New Hall 616, Department of History
1280 Main Street West
Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1
amstere@mcmaster.ca
Education
Ph.D. in History, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, December 2003.
M.A. in History, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, June 1995.
B. A. in Political Science, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, cum laude, 1992.
Academic and professional positions
Jason A. Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine, Mcmaster University,
Hamilton, ON, Canada, October 2014-present.
 Associate Professor, Department of Clinical Epidemiology and
Biostatistics
 Associate Professor, Department of History
 Adjunct Faculty Member, Department of Psychiatry and
Behavioural Neurosciences, DeGroote School of Medicine
 Member, Center for Health Economics and Policy Analysis
(CHEPA), McMaster University
Associate Professor, Department of History, University of WisconsinMilwaukee, WI, August 2012-September 2014.
 Co-Coordinator, Program in Middle East and North African
Studies, UWM, 2004-2014.
Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of WisconsinMilwaukee, 2003-2012.
Program Coordinator, University of Pennsylvania, Middle East Health Group,
2002-2003.
Lecture series “Gender, Violence, and Medicine in the Middle East,”
program of University of Pennsylvania Middle East Center and
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
Arabic-English Translator, ORBIS Ocular Surgery Mission, Fez, Morocco
1999.
Arabic-English-French simultaneous translation in triage, lectures to
nurses about corneal transplant, and surgical demonstrations of
strabismus correction, corneal transplant, and retinal reattachment
procedures.
Arabic-English Translator for Scott Forgey, esq., Philadelphia, PA, 1997.
Human rights asylum cases (Western Sahara).
Arabic Language Training
Arabic Language Institute, Fez, Morocco. 1995, 2003-2005.
Classical Arabic training 6 hours per day.
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 1994, 1996-1998.
Paleography, Qur’anic interpretation (tafsir), advanced Arabic texts.
Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT 1996. Summer intensive program, and
certified advanced in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA).
Publications
Books
2013 Medicine and the Saints: Science, Islam, and the Colonial Encounter in
Morocco, 1877-1956, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013).
 Winner of the Honorable Mention for the Alf Andrew Heggoy
Book Prize of the French Colonial Historical Society, 2014.
Articles and Book Chapters
Forthcoming, “The “Syphilitic Arab”?: A Search for Civilization in
Disease Etiology, Native Prostitution, and French Colonial Medicine,” to
appear in Patricia Lorcin and Todd Shepard (eds.), French
Mediterraneans, (University of Nebraska Press, 2016).
Forthcoming, “The Mad Saint as Healer: The Islamic Majnun in al-Kattani’s
Salwat al-Anfas and in French Colonial Medicine and Sociologie,” to
appear in Henk de Smaele, Tineke Osselaer, and Kaat Wils-Verhaegen
(eds.), Sign or Symptom? Exceptional Corporeal Phenomena in
Medicine and Religion (19th and 20th century), (Leuven: University of
Leuven Press).
2015 “The Body and the Body Politic: Medicine, Public Health, and
2
Healing as History in the Modern Middle East and North Africa,”
International Journal of Middle East Studies (47:3): 563-565.
2013 “Rumor and Revolution: Medicine, Technology, and Popular Politics in
Pre-Protectorate Morocco, 1877-1912,” in ed. Driss Maghraoui,
Revisiting the Colonial Past in Morocco, (London and New York:
Routledge): 87-111.
2009 “’The Harem Revealed’ and the Islamic-French Family: Aline de
Lens and a Frenchwoman’s Orient in Lyautey’s Morocco,” French
Historical Studies, Spring 2009 (32:2): 279-312.
2006 “Saints and the Islamic City: Looking for Sacred Space in Fes, Morocco,”
The Urban History Newsletter, October 2006, Number 36: 1-3.
2004 “The Many Deaths of Dr. Emile Mauchamp: Medicine, Technology, and
Popular Politics in Pre-Protectorate Morocco, 1877-1912,” International
Journal of Middle East Studies, 36 (2004): 409-428.
2001 “The Attacks Were a Bid for Power in the Arab World,” International
Herald Tribune, September 18, 2001: 10.
1999 “Tarikh al-maghrib al-mu’asir fi al-arshiv al-amriki,” (“Modern
Moroccan History in the Archives of the United States”), Proceedings of
the Conference on Moroccan History, March 19-21, 1999 in Sefrou,
Morocco.
Encyclopedia Entries
2011 “’Abd al-Salam” and “Adarraq,” in ed. Marc Gaborieau, Gudrun
Krämer, John Nawas and Everett Rowson, The Encyclopedia of Islam 3
(Leiden: Brill, 2011): 16-17, 8-10.
2009 “Shrines of Morocco,” in ed. Larissa Taylor, Encyclopedia of Medieval
Pilgrimage, (Leiden: Brill, 2009): 454-455.
2009 “Muhammad V of Morocco,” in ed. John Esposito, The Oxford
Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2009): 120-121.
2006 “Morocco,” in ed. John Merriman and Jay Winter, Europe Since
1914—Encyclopedia of the Age of War and Reconstruction, (New York:
Scribner, 2006): 1799-1802.
2005 “Westernization: The Middle East,” in ed. Maryanne Cline Horowitz,
The New Dictionary of the History of Ideas, (New York: Scribner, 2005):
3
2468-2469.
Book Reviews
2015 Review of Chouki El Hamel, Black Morocco: A History of Slavery,
Race, and Islam, in American Historical Review, June 2015: 1142-1143.
2011 Review of Stacy E. Holden, The Politics of Food in Modern Morocco,
in Agricultural History, 85:3 (Summer 2011): 423-424.
2011 Review of Spencer Segalla, The Moroccan Soul: French Education,
Colonial Ethnology, and Muslim Resistance, 1912-1956, in Journal of
World History, 22:2 (June 2011): 420-423.
2008 Review of Kim Pelis, Charles Nicolle: Pasteur’s Imperial Missionary,
Typhus and Tunisia, in Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied
Sciences, Vol. 63 (January 2008): 128-9.
2007 Review of Richard Keller, Colonial Madness: Psychiatry in French
North Africa, in Middle East Journal, Vol.LXI, No. 4, (Autumn 2007):
726-728.
Prizes, Fellowships, and Grants
Senior Scholar Fellowship, Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of
Religion, University of Chicago Divinity School, 2014-2015 (declined).
Honorable Mention for Medicine and the Saints: Science, Islam, and the
Colonial Encounter in Morocco, the Andrew Alf Heggoy Book Prize of
the French Colonial Historical Society, 2014.
Center for International Education Global Studies Fellowship, University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2010-2011.
Institute for Research in the Humanities Fellowship, University of WisconsinMadison, 2008.
Coolidge Scholars Program Fellowship, for research at Columbia University
Library and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City,
Crosscurrents Journal, 2006.
UW-Milwaukee Graduate School Research Committee Award, 2005-6,
($15,000).
University of Pennsylvania, Chimicles Fellowship, 2001-2002.
4
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship, 2000.
Fulbright-Hayes Dissertation Research Fellowship for Morocco, 1998-1999.
Chateaubriand Doctoral Research Fellowship in Humanities and Social Sciences
(HSS) of the Government of France, 1998-1999.
Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Research
Fellowship (IDRF), 1998-1999.
American Institute of Maghrib Studies Dissertation Fellowship, 1998.
Fulbright Dissertation Fellowship for France, 1998-1999 (declined).
Social Science Research Council Middle East Dissertation Fellowship for
Morocco, 1998-1999 (declined).
Foreign Language Area Studies Grant (FLAS) for Arabic study, 1995, 19961997.
Social Science Research Council Middle East Pre-Dissertation Grant for
Morocco, 1995.
Institutional and Programmatic Grants
2015
Michael DeGroote School of Medicine (McMaster University) Project
Grant ($5,000) to develop History of Medicine and Medical Humanities
Research Portal (non-competitive).
2015
Associated Medical Services Project Grant ($10,000) to develop History
of Medicine and Medical Humanities Research Portal (non-competitive).
2009-2012 U.S. Department of Education, Undergraduate International Studies
and Foreign Languages Grant, (UISFL) for Middle East/North
African studies and Arabic at UW-Milwaukee ($150,000).
Written as “core faculty” with Anita Alkhas, PI Caroline
Seymour-Jorn, and Hamid Ouali.
2009-2010, 2010-2011, extension 2011-2012.
Outcomes:
-- Middle East speaker series (9 speakers).
--American Geographical Society Library exhibit “Central Asia.”
--Middle East Film Festival in Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian (2 years)
--Arabic language minor developed.
--Library acquisitions for Golda Meir Library.
5
--New offerings for Middle East/North African Studies Certificate.
--Study abroad opportunities for undergraduate/graduate students.
--K-12 materials for Wisconsin public school teachers.
Digital Humanities Research Projects
2015-present “History of Medicine and Medical Humanities” Research Web
Portal, Encyclopedia, and Digital Resource, McMaster
University. $30,000 budget to date.
Conceptualized, designed, programmed, researched, wrote,
edited, uploaded, formatted, and trained student assistants for
web portal.
Content:
--Descriptions of hundreds of libraries, archives, and museums in
the history of medicine worldwide, with grants available.
--Compilation of digitized documents, art, maps, images,
databases, digital archives in history of medicine, organized by
theme.
--Bibliographies in history of medicine, including non-West.
--Compiled grants for research offered by libraries, archives,
museums, and McMaster University for its students.
--Compilation of history of medicine digital exhibits, organized
by theme.
--Art and Graphic Medicine sites.
--Compiled McMaster resources—grants for student research,
resources in campus libraries, faculty and academic programs
in medical humanities.
--“How to do History of Medicine” pedagogical
materials for science majors and medical students.
--Collection of archival, museum, library resources of the city of
Hamilton, ON.
--Canadian history of medicine resources by province.
--Aboriginal medicine and health resources.
Invited Lectures and Presentations
2015
“Why is Anyone Anti-Vaccine? A History of Vaccination and AntiVaccination,” McMaster University, Department of Pediatrics, Pediatric
Grand Rounds, September 24, 2015, Hamilton, ON.
2015
“The Body and the Body Politic in the Middle East and North Africa:
Theoretical Reflections on Corporeality and History,” Yale
University, MAVCOR (Material and Visual Cultures of Religion
Project), April 7, 2015, New Haven, CT.
6
2015
“Healing the Body, Healing the Islamic Umma: Medicine and Sufi
Saints in Morocco,” Brown University, Middle East Studies Program of
the Watson Institute for International Studies, April 2, 2015, Providence,
RI.
2015
“The Muslim Midwife: Birth as Medical Knowledge, Mediation, and the
Constitution of the Political Subject in French Morocco,” Northern
Ontario School of Medicine, January 27, 2015, Thunder Bay, ON.
2014
“The Politics of Reproduction in North Africa: Historical and
Anthropological Perspectives,” Keynote address, Hillary Clinton Center
for Women’s Empowerment, Al-Akhawayn University, April 2, 2014,
Ifrane, Morocco.
2014
“Healing the Body, Healing the Islamic Umma: Sufi Saints, God’s Law,
and Corporeal Archaeologies of the Polity in Morocco,” Harvard
University Divinity School, Science and Religion Lecture Series, March
12, 2014, Cambridge, MA.
2014 “The Body and the Body Politic in the Middle East and North Africa:
Theoretical Reflections on the Arab Spring,” Center for Middle East
Studies Friday Lecture Series, University of Chicago, January 24, 2014,
Chicago, IL.
2013 “The Muslim Womb: Midwives, Colonial Obstetrics, and the
Postcolonial Legacies of Medicalized Childbirth in Morocco,” Center for
Global Citizenship, St. Louis University, November 15, 2013, St. Louis,
MO.
2013 “Healing the Body, Healing the Umma: Sufi Saints, God’s Law,
and Reflections on the Islamic Body Politic in Morocco and North
Africa,” Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa, Program of
African Studies, Northwestern University, November 4, 2013, Evanston,
IL.
2013 “The Marabout (Murabit) as Public Healer: The Cosmology of
Corporeality and the Islamic Body Politic in Morocco,” African Studies
Center Lecture Series, University of Wisconsin-Madison, October 16,
2013, Madison, WI.
2013 “The Mad Saint as Healer: The Islamic Majnun in al-Kattani’s
Salwat al-Anfas and in French Colonial Ethnography,” Documentation
and Research Centre for Religion, Culture, and Society (KADOC),
University of Leuven, September 13, 2013, Leuven, Belgium.
7
2013
Chapter 1 of Medicine and the Saints is the subject of Religion and
Culture Web forum of the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study
of Religion at University of Chicago Divinity School, September 2013.
2013
“Healing the Body, Healing the Umma: Sufi Saints and God’s
Law in a Corporeal City of Virtue,” Middle East History and Theory
Workshop, University of Chicago, March 13, 2013, Chicago, IL.
2013
“Maternal and Infant Health in Morocco: Women’s Rights and
Family in Islam,” Global Health Institute, University of WisconsinMadison, February 25, 2013, Madison, WI.
2012
“The Politics of Reproduction in the Middle East,” closing
remarks for Conference on Women and Children’s Health in the Middle
East, Center for Middle East Studies, University of Chicago, November
10, 2012, Chicago, IL.
2012
" La médecine des harems et l’enfant endormi [raqid]: La matronne
marocaine, le médecin français, et la bio-politique de la pharmacopée à
l’époque du protectorat français au Maroc, 1912-1945,” Lecture Series
of L’équipe MEOS (Le Médicament comme Objet Social), Université de
Montréal, May 9, 2012, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
2010
“The Wiles of Women: Sheherazade as Historian, Feminist,
and Islamic (Sufi) Mystic,” Center for the Humanities, The Arabian
Nights in Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin-Madison, October 4,
2010.
2007
“Saints, Sultans and Saffron: The History and Culture of North African
Jews,” Keynote address for the annual meeting of Wisconsin Society for
Jewish Learning, Milwaukee, WI, June 24, 2007.
2007
“A History of Radical Islam and Politics,” Invited presentation to
Homeland Security Anti-Terrorism Task Force of Southeast Wisconsin
(STAC), Milwaukee, WI, February 16, 2007.
1999
“Tarikh at-tibb fi al-maghrib,” (“The History of Medicine in
Morocco”). Lecture in Arabic to the doctoral history students at Moulay
Abdallah University in Fez, Morocco, April 8, 1999.
1999
“Tarikh al-maghrib al-mu’asir fi al-arshiv al-amriki,”
(“Modern Moroccan History in the Archives of the United States”),
Address in Arabic at Annual Conference on Moroccan History, March
19-21, 1999 in Sefrou, Morocco.
8
Radio, Television, Newspaper Interviews
2015
Television interview about Kurdish women’s status, “21 Days to
Nawruz” on “The Doc Side” Program, YES TV, Hamilton, ON Canada,
May 16, 2015.
2013
Television interview, “Women’s Rights, Development, and Health in
Morocco,” Wisconsin Public Television (PBS) Channel 36,
“International Focus” Program, Milwaukee, WI, January 20, 2013.
2011
Television interview about the Libyan Revolution and fall of Qaddafi,
Fox 6 News Channel, Milwaukee, WI, August 22, 2011.
2011
Television interview, “Bin Laden’s Legacy,” Wisconsin Public
Television (PBS) Channel 36, “International Focus” Program, May 22,
2011.
2011
Press interview by Omar Sacirbey about Sayyid Qutb and the Muslim
Brotherhood, published in Religion News Service, Washington Post, USA
Today, as “Is Muslim Brotherhood Shaped by 1950s Views?” February
10, 2011.
2010
Radio interview, “Women and Family Law in Moroccan Society,” Jack
Rice Radio Show, Washington, D.C., April 8, 2010.
2010
Radio interview, “A History of Moroccan-U.S. Relations,” Jack Rice
Radio Show, Washington, D.C., April 1, 2010.
2004
Television Interview about the death of Yassir Arafat, Channel 6 News,
Milwaukee, WI, November 12, 2004.
2004
Radio Interview about Islamic terrorism, The Breakfast Club Radio
Jamaica Program, Jamaica, April 13, 2004.
2003
Television Interview about Campus Watch, WB Channel 18 News,
Milwaukee, WI, October 2003.
Symposia and Conferences Organized
2015
“Vaccination and Anti-Vaccination: The Science, History, Ethics,
Public Health, Medical, and Policy Aspects of a Contested Issue.” HalfDay Symposium co-organized with the Demystifying Medicine Program
at McMaster University, May 28, 2015.
100 attendees (students, staff, faculty, community) Hamilton, ON.
Speakers: Ellen Amster | Jason A. Hannah Chair in the History of
Medicine, Julie Emili | Director of Public Health and Preventive
9
Residency Program, Gordon Guyatt | Distinguished Professor, Clinical
Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Department of Medicine, CLARITY
program, Mark Loeb | Director of Infectious Disease Program,
Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, Matthew Miller |
McMaster Immunology Research Center, Department of Biochemistry
and Biomedicine, Jeffrey Pernica | Head of the Division of Pediatric
Infectious Disease and Associate Professor in the Department of
Pediatrics
Conference Papers and Presentations
2015
“The Muslim Midwife: Birth as Medical Knowledge, Mediation, and the
Constitution of the Political Subject in French Morocco,” invited
presentation at Midwestern Science Studies Conference, May 8-9 2015,
at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.
2013
“Corporeality and Politics: Theoretical Reflections on the Arab Spring,”
Middle East Studies Association Meeting, October 10-13, 2013, in New
Orleans, LA.
2012
“The Syphilitic Arab? A Search for Civilization in Syphilis Etiology,
Prostitution and Native Physiology,” Society for French Historical
Studies Meeting, March 22-24, 2012, in Los Angeles, CA.
2011
“Healing the Body, Healing the Umma—Sufi Saints as Public Healers in
Morocco,” Middle East Studies Association Meeting, December 1-4,
2011, in Washington, D.C.
2011
“Frédéric le Play in Morocco? Public Hygiene, Lyautey’s Solidarisme,
and Muslim Nationalism in the Moroccan City,” Western Society for
French History Conference, November 10-12, 2011, in Portland, OR.
2011
“Poison, Jinn, and the Sleeping Child: Muslim Women’s Traditional
Medicine, the Law, and Public Health in French Protectorate Morocco,
1912-1935,” Public Health and Health Policy in the Maghrib
Conference, June 17-20, 2011 in Tunis, Tunisia.
2011
“The Muslim Womb: Midwives, Colonial Obstetrics, and the
Medicalization of Moroccan Birth,” Berkshire Conference of Women
Historians, June 9-12, 2011 in Amherst, MA.
2011
“Unveiling the Muslim Obstetrical Patient: Birth, Clinical Medicine and
Colonial Positivism in French Morocco,” French Colonial Historical
Society Conference, June 2-4, 2011 in Toronto, Canada.
10
2010
“Medicine at the Sultan’s Court: Rumor, Revolution and “Modern”
Sciences in Pre-Protectorate Morocco, Workshop 4, European University
Institute Robert Schumann Centre for Advanced Study, 11th
Mediterranean Research Meeting, March 24-27, 2010 in Florence
(Montecantini), Italy.
2008
“Harem Medicine and the Sleeping Child: Moroccan Midwives, French
Doctors and Medical Authority in French Protectorate Morocco, 19121935,” Berkshire Women’s History Conference, June 12-15, 2008, in
Minneapolis, MN.
2007
“Saints in the Islamic City: Geographies of the Sacred in Fez, Morocco,
1500-1880,” Middle East Studies Association Meeting, November 1720, 2007 in Montreal, Canada.
2007
“’Medicine is the Daughter of Magic,’ Science and Edmond Doutté’s
Magie et Religion en Afrique du Nord in the French Sociology of Islam,”
French Historical Studies Conference, March 15-17, 2007 in Houston,
TX.
2006
“Magic of the Moors: Judeo-Islamic Exchange and Medical Practice in
Morocco,” Society for the Social History of Medicine Conference, June
28-July 1, 2006, in Warwick, Great Britain (UK).
2006
“Medicine and the Saints: Healing as Politics in Pre-Protectorate
Morocco,” International Congress on Medieval Studies, May 4-7, 2006
in Kalamazoo, MI.
2006
“Midwifery in Morocco, or How Greek (“Unani”) Medicine Became
Muslim,” International Conference on Traditional Asian Medicine, April
27-30, 2006 in Austin, TX.
2005
Invited commentator, “Meeting the Needs of a Neglected Region: A
Newly Established Global Network of Researchers on HIV/AIDS in the
Middle East and North Africa Region,” Middle East Studies Association
Meeting, November 19-22, 2005 in Washington, D.C.
2003
“Midwives and Muwallidat: Pubic Health and Modernization in French
Protectorate Morocco, 1930-1956,” Social Science History Association
Conference, November 13-16, 2003 in Baltimore, MD.
2003
“The Sociology of Islamic Modernity: Robert Montagne and Social
Revolution in French Protectorate Morocco, 1930-1950,” French
Historical Studies Meeting, April 3-5, 2003 in Milwaukee, WI.
2002
“Brothels and Sewers: French Municipal Hygiene and the Struggle for
11
Moroccan Cities, 1912-1931,” African Studies Association Meeting,
December 5-8, 2002 in Washington, D.C.
2002
“Harem Medicine, Slavery, and the Islamic-French Family: Aline de
Lens and the Frenchwoman’s Colonial Mission in Morocco, 1915-1925,”
Western Society for French History Conference, October 2-5, 2002 in
Baltimore, MD.
2002
“The Midwife and the Modern: The Problem of Medical Knowledge in
French Protectorate Morocco, 1912-1956,” Berkshire Conference on
Women’s History, June 6-9, 2002 in Storrs, CT.
2002
“The Invention of Medical Rationality: French Hygiene, Islamic Science
and the Colonial Project in Algeria and Morocco, 1840-1905,” American
Historical Association Meeting, January 3-6, 2002 in San Francisco, CA.
2001
“Tuberculosis, Urbanization and the Sociology of Robert Montagne:
Morocco 1930-1950,” Middle East Studies Association Meeting,
November 17-20, 2001 in San Francisco, CA.
2000
“The Many Deaths of Dr. Emile Mauchamp: Medical Representations in
the Creation of French Protectorate Morocco, 1877-1912,” Middle East
Studies Association Meeting, November 16-19, 2000 in Orlando, FL.
2000
“Medicine, Magic and the Modern: Women and the Problem of Medical
Knowledge in French Protectorate Morocco, 1912-1956,” Conference on
Women and Gender in Science, Medicine, and Technology, October 1215, 2000 in St. Louis, MO.
Teaching
Undergraduate courses developed and taught at McMaster
History 2IC3: Islamic Civilization, the Formative Period, 500-1258 AD.
Global Health Study Abroad Course developed and taught at McMaster
University and UWM:
“Maternal and Infant Health in Morocco: Women’s Rights and Family in
Islam.” (undergraduate and graduate levels)
Developed course with $16,000 grant support from U.S. Department of
Education Grant (UISFL) at UWM.
The course first ran May 29, 2012-July 2, 2012. 6 credits (3 of Arabic, 3
of History/Women’s Studies/Global Studies/Religious Studies).
 Summer (2012), co-taught with Assistant Professor of UWM
Zilber School of Public Health, Karla Bartholomew.
 Course affiliated with UW-Madison Global Health Certificate
Program, 2013.
12


Summer (2013), co-taught with Associate Professor of
Department of Comparative Literature, Caroline Seymour-Jorn.
Summer (2014) taught independently.
Undergraduate courses developed and taught at UWM
A History of the Modern Middle East, 1600-1979.
Islamic Civilization: The Formative Period, 500-1258 A.D.
Women in Islamic History
Honors Seminar: Medicine and Man: A History of the Body in the Western
Tradition
Political Islam to Zionism: Middle East Intellectual History, 1789-1979
Challenges to the Republic, Modern France 1815-1962
Graduate course developed and taught at UWM
History 940: Islam and History: Graduate Seminar in Research Methods
Undergraduate and graduate courses in development
“The Citizen-Patient: A Modern History of Public Health, 1700-Present”
“Health, Medicine and the Environment in North Africa and the Middle East”
“Global Environmental History”
Service to the profession
Grant and Fellowship Review Committee, Nova Scotia Health Research
Foundation, AMS grant competitions, May 2015.
Governing Council Member, Western Society for French History, elected
October 2013.
Board of Directors Member, American Institute of Maghrib Studies, elected
February 2013.
Chair, L. Carl Brown Book Prize Committee for the American Institute of
Maghrib Studies, 2013.
National screening committee member for U. S. Institute of International
Education Fulbright Scholars Program
 North Africa (Morocco) 2010-11.
 North Africa (Morocco) and Gulf States (Kuwait, UAE) 20112012.
 North Africa (Morocco, Tunisia) and Gulf States (Kuwait,
Bahrain) 2012-2013.
Screening committee member for Social Science Research Council International
Dissertation Research Fellowship Program (IDRF), 2011-2012.
13
Expert testimony for HIAS (Hebrew Immigration Aid Service) of Philadelphia,
immigration case involving Moroccan women’s civil status and birth
records (June-July 2014).
Panel Organizer, “The Body and the Body Politic in North Africa:
Interdisciplinary Perspectives,” Middle East Studies Association
Meeting, October 10-13, 2013, New Orleans, LA.
Manuscript Reviewer, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Journal of
Middle East Women’s Studies, Journal of Women’s History, Syracuse
University Press, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Signs, Health
Reform Observer—Observatoire des Reformes de la Santé.
Book reviewer, American Historical Review, Journal of North African Studies,
Middle East Journal, Journal in the History of Medicine and Allied
Sciences, Journal of World History.
Founding member, Global Network of Researchers of AIDS in the Middle
East/North Africa (GNR-MENA).
Affiliated Faculty, Global Health Institute, University of Wisconsin-Madison,
2013-present.
October 19, 2010 helped coordinate “Milwaukee Water Sector Dinner” with
the Business Council for International Understanding.
BCIU President Peter J. Tichansky was charged by the Obama
Administration with introducing U.S. business interests to the Middle East
through U.S. Ambassadors. The dinner was attended by Interim Dean of the
UWM School of Freshwater Mark Harris, Professor Sammis White, the
Milwaukee Water Council, and five U.S. Ambassadors to the Middle East:
The Honorable Margaret Scobey, U.S. Ambassador to Egypt
The Honorable Deborah K. Jones, U.S. Ambassador to Kuwait
The Honorable Richard J. Schmeierer, U.S. Ambassador to Oman
The Honorable Joseph E. LeBaron, U.S. Ambassador to Qatar
The Honorable Gordon Gray, U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia
Service to McMaster University
Director, Hannah Unit in the History of Medicine, Oct. 2014-present.
 Developing “History of Medicine and Medical Humanities” Web
Portal, Encyclopedia, and Digital Resource for student research,
with grants offered by every history of medicine library and
archive worldwide, hundreds of descriptions of libraries,
museums, archival collections, complete inventory of history of
14
2015
medicine materials, faculty, programs at McMaster university,
medical humanities campus events.
 Developing interactive digitial history project, “The History of
Public Health in Hamilton,” 2015-present.
 Lecturing and teaching in McMaster School of Medicine, Master
of Public Health program, Bachelor of Health Sciences Program,
Midwifery Program.
 Organized “History of Medicine and Medical Humanities
Speaker Series,” 4 public events with speakers, fall 2015.
 Advise Faculty of Health sciences students (Bachelor of Health
Sciences, Nursing, Midwifery, Medicine, Occupational Therapy,
Health Research Methodologies) in independent research
projects.
Co-organized interdisciplinary symposium, “Vaccination and AntiVaccination: The Science, History, Ethics, Public Health, Medical, and
Policy Aspects of a Contested Issue.” With the Demystifying Medicine
Program at McMaster University, May 28, 2015.
2015-present Undergraduate Committee Member, Department of History
2015-present Member, Steering Committee, Master of Public Health Program,
Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics.
Membership in Professional Associations
Middle East Studies Association
French Historical Studies Association
American Association for the History of Medicine
American Institute for Maghrib Studies
Commission on History of Science and Technology in Islamic Civilization
Society for the Social History of Medicine
International Association for the Study of Traditional Asian Medicine
American Association of University Women
International Studies Association
French Colonial Historical Society
Foreign Languages
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA): Fluent (reading, speaking, writing).
Moroccan Colloquial Arabic: Fluent (speaking, reading, writing).
French: Fluent (reading, speaking, writing).
German: Advanced (reading, speaking), Advanced intermediate (writing).
Hebrew: Basic (reading, writing).
15
16