Elena Conis, PhD

Elena Conis is a writer and historian of medicine, public health, and the environment. Prior to joining the Graduate School of Journalism, she was a professor of history and the Mellon Fellow in Health and Humanities at Emory University; the Cain Fellow at the Science History Institute; and an award-winning health columnist for the Los Angeles Times, where she wrote the ”Esoterica Medica,” ”Nutrition Lab,” and ”Supplements” columns. Her first book, Vaccine Nation: America’s Changing Relationship with Immunization, received the Arthur J. Viseltear Award from the American Public Health Association and was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title and a Science Pick of the Week by the journal Nature. She is currently working on a book on the history of the pesticide DDT with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Institutes of Health. Elena serves on the faculty of the Department of Anthropology, History, and Social Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco as an affiliated faculty member. She holds a PhD in the history of health sciences from UCSF; masters degrees in journalism and public health from Berkeley; and a bachelors degree in biology from Columbia University.