Mary Fissell

Mary Fissell is Professor in the Department of the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, with joint appointments in History of Science and History departments. She holds B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, where she completed her dissertation under Charles Rosenberg.

Her research examines how ordinary people in early modern England understood health, healing, and the natural world, focusing on cheap print's role in shaping ideas about reproduction, gender relations, and power structures. Her book 'Vernacular Bodies' explores how reproductive concepts mediated social change, while her current project analyzes 'Aristotle's Masterpiece' as a lens into vernacular knowledge and print culture in the Atlantic world.

Teaching includes surveys of medicine history and graduate seminars on popular knowledge. She coedits the Bulletin of the History of Medicine and mentors graduate students in history of medicine.