Kathleen Vongsathorn

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Ph.D.

Residence: September 1, 2012–August 31, 2014

Profile

My research interests include a broad spectrum of historical categories, including medical history, African history, the history of childhood, humanitarian history, and mission history.  More specifically, I am interested in the history of medicine in colonial Africa, and my research thus far has focused on the history of health and disease in twentieth-century Uganda.

My current research project is part of the Max Planck Institute’s ‘Gender Studies of Science’ group, and focuses on the role of women in the spread of biomedical knowledge in colonial Uganda.  I am particularly interested in the role of missionaries and the Ugandan women that they trained to spread biomedical ideas about hygiene, childbirth, and infant health. 

In addition, I am revising my doctoral research for publication as a book.  Undertaken at the University of Oxford, my doctoral research focused on the roles of missionaries, government, and patients in the shaping of Uganda’s mission leprosy settlements in the colonial period.  Prior to my doctorate, I also completed a Masters degree at Oxford in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology.