Abena Dove Osseo-Asare
Assistant Professor
Contact
Office: 3323 Dwinelle Hall
Email: send
a message
On Research Leave 2008-09
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.
My main research focus currently is the history of drug prospecting
in Africa. I address the ways in which patents, databases, and chemical
formulas shape rights to medicinal plants and related pharmacological
knowledge. This project places the history of drug discovery in an
international framework to better understand the global pharmaceutical
industry.
I am affiliated with the Science,
Technology, and Society Center, Center for African
Studies, and Department
of Anthropology, History and Social Medicine at UCSF.
Selected Publications
"Bioprospecting and Resistance: Transforming Poisoned
Arrows
into Strophanthin Pills in Colonial Gold Coast, 1885-1922," Social History of Medicine 21
no. 2 (2008). pdf
Book Review: The African Aids Epidemic: A History by John Iliffe, Social History of Medicine 19 no. 2 (2007): 401-402 (link).
Recent Presentations
"The Search for Grains of Paradise," Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, South Africa, 11 July 2007. Watch"Bioprospecting and Resistance: A view from West Africa," A2K2 Conference:Traditional and Genetic Resources Panel, Yale Law School, 28 April 2007.
Courses
Africa since 1500
(History 10) - Spring 2008 Video
Preview
Modern Travellers:
African Journeys since 1700 (History 103H) - Spring 2008
Drugs in World History (History 280S) - Fall 2007
Healing and Illness
in
African History (History 103H/S) - Fall 2006