
Work With Me
In addition to my doctoral work, I write book reviews, op-eds, and commentaries on areas related to my research or current events.
Jamie Marsella
PhD Candidate
I am a doctoral candidate in the History of Science department at Harvard University. My research focuses on the intersection between race, gender, and medicine in the development of women and children’s public health programming.
My dissertation will be the first in-depth study of euthenics in twentieth-century public health and child welfare. I explore role of euthenic programming in the New York City Babies’ Welfare Association (BWA). The BWA was a city-wide preventative care network for women and children made up of hundreds of philanthropic, religious, and city-funded organizations. In treating child welfare reformers as public health workers, my dissertation demonstrates how euthenic thinking permeated public health programs for women and children as well as the fluid barrier between public health programming and women’s domestic training. Euthenics provided a eugenic justification for women’s reform and shared understandings and goals across disparate fields in academia, medicine, public health, child welfare, and private industry.
Before joining the Ph.D. program, I worked in digital marketing and public relations for a variety of industries, including healthcare and education. I hold an AM from Harvard University, an MA from the University of Chicago and a BA from the University of Portland.