Background
Dr. Mary E. Fissell is professor of history of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, with appointments in the History of Science and Technology and History departments. Her scholarly work focuses on how ordinary people in early modern England understood health, healing and the natural world.
She supervises graduate students admitted to the History of Medicine department and offers fields for students in other departments as well; she welcomes inquiries about graduate training.
She is currently working on a book about Aristotle’s Masterpiece, the best-selling early-modern book on sex and reproduction.
Dr. Fissell received her B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, where she wrote her dissertation in the history and sociology department under the direction of Charles Rosenberg. She joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 1992.
Prior to joining Johns Hopkins, Dr. Fissell was a lecturer and research associate at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine at the University of Manchester.
She teaches a range of courses, including undergraduate and graduate surveys in the history of medicine; the history of science, technology, and medicine methods seminar; and a graduate research seminar on popular knowledge. She coedits the Bulletin of the History of Medicine.