معرفی
Mariola Espinosa is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Iowa and affiliated faculty in the Program in Bioethics and Humanities at the Carver College of Medicine. Her academic work centers on the history of medicine and public health in the Caribbean and Latin America, with a focus on empire, race, disease, and transnational medical practices.
- University: University of Iowa
- School: College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
- Department: Department of History
- Affiliation: Program in Bioethics and Humanities, Carver College of Medicine
Education:
- PhD in History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2003)
- AB in History, Princeton University, with certificates in Latin American Studies and French Languages and Cultures (1996)
Research Interests: Mariola Espinosa specializes in the historical intersections of medicine, disease, and empire in Latin America and the Caribbean. Her research explores how racial ideologies shaped medical knowledge, particularly during yellow fever epidemics, and how public health systems developed in transnational contexts. She investigates the global dimensions of disease control and the ethical implications of historical medical practices.
Publication Trends: Her recent articles reflect a strong engagement with the historical legacies of pandemics, especially in light of the COVID-19 crisis. She analyzes how past epidemics inform contemporary public health discourse, emphasizing the importance of global and comparative perspectives. Her work bridges the history of medicine with broader questions of social justice, inequality, and the politics of health.
Scientific Awards:
- National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (2025-26)
- UI P3 Post-Tenure Faculty Support (2025-26)
- UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Collegiate Teaching Award (2022-23)
- National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend (2022)
- UI Arts and Humanities Initiative Award (2022-23)
- UI International Programs Summer Research Fellowship (2022)
- Rocky Mountain Conference on Latin American Studies Edwin Leiuwen Award (2021)
- Hathi Trust Research Center Advanced Collaborative Award (2016)
- May Brodbeck Humanities Fellowship (2015-16)
Advising and Grants: Espinosa has led significant academic initiatives, including serving as Director of the Global Health Studies Program from 2017 to 2020, where she helped establish an interdisciplinary undergraduate major. She has secured major external funding, including a prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant in 2025 to support research on the development of medicine in Puerto Rico. Her grant success reflects her leadership in humanities scholarship and her ability to bridge historical research with contemporary public health issues.
Labs and Research Teams: While not affiliated with a laboratory in the scientific sense, Espinosa is deeply involved in collaborative research networks. She contributes to interdisciplinary dialogues through her affiliation with the Bioethics and Humanities program and participates in national and international scholarly collectives focused on Latin American history and global health. Her collaborative article on the COVID-19 pandemic exemplifies her engagement with transnational academic teams.
