Research Workshops

The National Library of Medicine Michael E. DeBakey Fellowship in the History of Medicine provides individual awards of up to $10,000 to U.S. citizens and permanent residents to support research in the collection of NLM. This workshop will provide information about the fellowships, review guidelines for applications, and provide an overview of recipients and research fields. Two recent fellows will present on their research. The workshop will conclude with recommendations on applying for travel fellowships with examples from the history of medicine. The workshop is open to faculty and advanced graduate students across fields. 

Information about DeBakey Fellowships

Presenters:

Jeffrey S. Reznick, PhD, is Chief of the Collection Branch and Senior Historian at the National Library of Medicine (NLM), the world’s largest biomedical library located on the Bethesda, Maryland, campus of the National Institutes of Health. In his combined leadership and research roles, he works strategically with his colleagues to enhance access to and ensure preservation of the NLM’s world-renowned collection, along with growing the legacy of the library as a pivotal resource for understanding the past, present, and future of human health and disease.

Brice Bowrey is a science and technology studies (STS) scholar whose research examines expertise, professionalization, and knowledge exchange in the medical and physical sciences. He also works in the field of digital humanities (DH), using computational methods to process natural language, extract structured data from unstructured sources, and examine historical materials at scale. Alongside his role as an assistant professor in the Department of History and Political Studies at Southern Adventist University, he works independently with researchers and educators to develop digital tools for scholarship and teaching.

Richard Hirsh, a professor of the history of science and technology at Virginia Tech, has authored three books on the history of electrification in America. He inadvertently discovered that the electric utility industry sponsored research on resuscitation techniques for shock victims. This finding inspired him to combine his interest in the power industry with his passion for emergency medicine, a field in which he has worked for 38 years (and counting) as a volunteer emergency medical technician (EMT). As a DeBakey Fellow, he has found remarkable resources at the NLM, including some from 200 years ago, that provide context for understanding the modern evolution of life-restoring methods.