Keith Wailoo is Henry Putnam University Professor of History and Public Affairs. He is jointly appointed in the Department of History and in the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. He is former Vice Dean of the School of Public and International Affairs, former Chair of History, and former President of the American Association for the History of Medicine (2020-2022). His research straddles history and health policy, touching on drugs and drug policy, on the politics of race and health, on the interplay of identity, ethnicity, gender, and medicine, and on controversies in genetics and society.
In 2021, he received the Dan David Prize for his "influential body of historical scholarship focused on race, science, and health equity; on the social implications of medical innovation; and on the politics of disease" and was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His writings have advanced historical and public understanding on a range of topics: racial disparities in health care, the cultural politics of pain and opioids, how pandemic change societies, and the FDA's decision to ban menthol cigarettes.
His most recent book is Pushing Cool: Big Tobacco, Racial Marketing, and the Untold Story of the Menthol Cigarette (University of Chicago Press, 2021), which received the 2023 Hughes Prize from the British Society for the History of Science for its "originality and timeliness... incisive commentary... [and] meticulous research to uncover the enmeshment of social sciences, racial exploitation, and corporate interests, with catastrophic consequences for public health in the United States."
In 2022-23, he co-chaired a National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine committee which produced the 2023 report Toward Equitable Innovation in Health and Medicine: A Framework. The report presents a national governance framework to align emerging science, technology, and innovation in health and medicine with equity.
Professor Wailoo's other award-winning books include:
- Pain: A Political History (Johns Hopkins, 2015)
- How Cancer Crossed the Color Line (Oxford University Press, 2011)
- The Troubled Dream of Genetic Medicine: Ethnicity and Innovation in Tay-Sachs, Cystic Fibrosis, Sickle Cell Disease (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006) which received the Association of American Publishers book award in History of Science.
- Dying in the City of the Blues: Sickle Cell Anemia and the Politics of Race and Health (University of North Carolina, 2001) received multiple honors, including the Lillian Smith Book Award for Non-Fiction work elucidating questions of racial justice and inequality, the William H. Welch Medal for best book in the history of medicine, awarded by the American Association for the History of Medicine, the Susanne Glasscock Humanities Book Prize for Interdisciplinary Scholarship, the American Political Science Association Award for Best Book published in the area of Public Policies, Social and Legal Dimensions of Ethnic and Racial Politics in the U.S., and the Community Service Award by the Sickle Cell/Thalassemia Patient Network.
- Drawing Blood: Technology and Disease Identity in Twentieth Century America (Hopkins, 1997) which received the Arthur Viseltear Award from the American Public Health Association.
Before joining the Princeton faculty, Professor Wailoo taught in History and in Social Medicine (in the Medical School at UNC Chapel Hill), and at Rutgers University where he was Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of History and jointly affiliated with the History department and the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research. He holds a Ph.D. in the History and Sociology of Science from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelors Degree in Chemical Engineering from Yale University.
In 2007 he was elected to the National Academy of Medicine, and he is the recipient of numerous other academic honors.
