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How can Seattle be both a model city for upward social mobility and a place with our nation’s third highest level of homelessness? I asked myself this question in 2013 as I walked down Yesler Way, the original Skid Road, towards a homeless shelter where I...

I wanted to write the kind of book I'd enjoy reading. And, I intended to follow the time-honored advice to write about what I know. I am happy to report that I did both in Observing Evolution. My hope now is that a broad audience will enjoy my book, and will...

Trauma was the word of the year in 2018, according to the Oxford Dictionary. That was the same year I decided my tenure working as a communications specialist in the federal government needed to end. I felt I had achieved all I was going to, and that it was...

The VanArsdel Prize is awarded annually to the best graduate student essay investigating Victorian periodicals and newspapers. The prize was established in 1990 to honor Rosemary VanArsdel, a founding member of the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals...

When I first published Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex in 2009, not many people had even heard of “intersex” (atypical development of genitals, chromosomes, hormones and gonads), though of course individuals have always been born with these...

I was approached by my editor at the Johns Hopkins University Press about preparing a revised second edition of my book The Making of a Tropical Disease: A Short History of Malaria. The book was the first volume in the Johns Hopkins Biographies of Disease...

Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley was the head of the Bureau of Chemistry in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the precursor of today’s Food and Drug Administration. He is best remembered today as an important force behind the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act...

Why did you write Essential Documents in the History of American Higher Education? JHUP Editorial Director Greg Britton and I discussed this and agreed that our aim was to transform the history of American higher education from a spectator sport into an active...

The latest issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal (KIEJ) is a special issue focusing on freedom of speech and academic freedom. The issue’s Guest Editors, Barrett Emerick and Shannon Dea, graciously answered our questions on the issue’s origin and...

Two years ago, I embarked on the writing of my very first book. Coming from a field of expertise that values peer-reviewed scientific publications more than books, I did not think it was in the cards to consider authoring a book about my discipline and my...