Abena Dove Osseo-Asare
Assistant Professor
Contact
Office: 3323 Dwinelle Hall
Email: send a message
Office Hours: By Appointment
Education
Ph. D., History of Science, Harvard
University, 2005
A.B., History and Science, Harvard University, 1998
Download and view Research Interests
My general research interests include: the history of scientific knowledge, popular culture, and natural resource management with an emphasis on experiences in Africa. I study the disjuncture between elite and popular understandings of health, technology and the environment in different historical periods, with an eye towards how history might inform public policy today.
In my first book, Bitter Roots: The Search for Healing Plants
in Africa (forthcoming from The University of
Chicago Press), I address the history of drug
prospecting in Africa. Bitter Roots examines how healers,
rural communities, scientists, and drug companies have
sought to profit from pharmaceuticals made from six
plants found in African countries.
I am also conducting research for a new
project on the history of nuclear energy and radiation
protection services in Ghana. Read more about the
project here.
I am affiliated with the Science,
Technology,
and Society Center, Center
for African Studies, and Department
of
Anthropology, History and Social Medicine at UCSF.
Read interviews about my research here
and here.
Publications
Bitter Roots: The Search for Healing Plants
in Africa (The University of Chicago Press,
forthcoming). - book
Book Review:
Healing Traditions:
African Medicine, Cultural Exchange, and
Competition in South Africa, 1820-1918 by
Karen
E.
Flint, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 84
no. 1 (2010).
Atomic Junction: Nuclear Power in an African
Suburb - book
and film
in progress
"Scientific Equity: Experiments in Laboratory Education in Ghana, 1957-1967" - article in revision
Courses
Material
Culture (History 280H) - Coming Fall 2012
Drugs in World History (History 280S)
Topics in
the History of Medicine (History 183) - Video
Preview
Africa since
1500 (History 10) - Video Preview
Modern
Travellers: African Journeys since 1700 (History
103H)