I am a seventh year Ph.D. student in the History Department. I study cultural history and the history of medicine and science in late medieval and early modern Europe, specializing in the Holy Roman Empire (German-speaking Central Europe). My dissertation examines the intersections of medicine, technology and culture in the changing ideas and practices of surgically dismembering and reassembling the living body in the Holy Roman Empire during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

My dissertation draws from medical texts, archival documents, and objects (early modern prostheses) located primarily in Germany, where I conducted research as a fellow at the Herzog August Bibliothek and as a guest researcher at the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität.  I was a 2014-2015 Dissertation Writing Fellow at the Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine (formerly the Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science).  I currently hold a Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship for 2015-2016.

I completed my General Examination at Princeton in May 2011 with a major field in Cultural and Intellectual History in Early Modern Europe (Anthony Grafton), and minor fields in the High Middle Ages (William Chester Jordan) and the History of Science (co-advised by Pamela H. Smith, Columbia University, and Anthony Grafton).

I received my M.A. in History from Princeton in 2011.  I received my B.A. in History in 2009 from the University of Notre Dame, where I wrote my honors thesis on the politics of ceremony surrounding the funeral of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1558, entitled "The Emperor Remembered: Tradition and Policy in the Funeral Procession of Charles V."

Publications

"European Theories and Local Therapies: Mordexi and Galenism in the East Indies, 1500-1700," Journal of Early Modern History 18 (2014): 121-140.

"Bones of Contention: The Decision to Amputate in Early Modern Germany," The Sixteenth Century Journal, publication forthcoming.

Dissertation Title:

"Life and Limb: Technology, Surgery, and Bodily Loss in Early Modern Germany, 1500-1700"