Berman Institute’s Jeremy Greene Awarded Guggenheim Fellowship

Medical historian Jeremy Greene is one of 171 scientists, writers, scholars, and artists awarded Guggenheim Fellowships this year, a prestigious distinction that recognizes achievements and exceptional promise.

A Berman Institute faculty member, Greene is the William H. Welch Professor of Medicine and History of Medicine and director of the Department of the History of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His fellowship is in the category of the history of science, technology and economics.

Greene is a noted historian of how medical technology influences our understandings of sickness and health. He has written award-winning books on the relationship of pharmaceutical marketing to medical practice, the political economy of generic drugs, and the role of electronic media in medical care.

His most recent book, The Doctor Who Wasn’t There (University of Chicago Press), traces the long arc of enthusiasm for—and skepticism of—electronic media in health and medicine. Over the past century, a series of new technologies promised to democratize access to healthcare. From the humble telephone to the connected smartphone, from FM radio to wireless wearables, from cable television to the “electronic brains” of networked mainframe computers: each new platform has promised a radical reformation of the healthcare landscape. With equal attention to the history of technology, the history of medicine, and the politics and economies of American healthcare, Greene explores the role that electronic media play, for better and for worse, in the past, present, and future of our health.

His current research project, Syringe Tide: Disposable Technologies and the Making of Medical Waste, focuses on the scientific, social, and economic basis for the increasing disposability of medical technology and solutions to reduce the global impact of medical waste.

Guggenheim Fellows receive financial awards and were selected from a pool of nearly 2,500 applicants. The Guggenheim Foundation was established in 1925 by U.S. Senator Simon Guggenheim and his wife Olga Guggenheim in memory of their son John. Since their creation, the foundation has provided nearly $400 million in fellowships.