Prof. Anita Guerrini

I’m a historian of science and medicine, recently retired as Horning Professor in the Humanities at Oregon State University, where I’ve been since 2008. Before that I was a professor of History and Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. I was educated at Connecticut College and Oxford University and received a Ph.D. in History and Philosophy of Science from Indiana University.

Mostly, I’m a writer. People and their stories, past and present, are what move me. I’m happiest sitting in a cafe or somewhere outdoors filling the pages of a Clairefontaine notebook (I buy them in bulk whenever I’m in France). My research interests range widely in time, from the sixteenth century to the twentieth, but tend to coalesce around anatomy, natural history, the history of animals, the environment, and the history of food, and around the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Western Europe. But I’ve also written about the role of history in ecological restoration, and about the environmental history of southern California. Here’s a recent Retrospective on my professional career. Other things I’m passionate about include music, food, fiction, and politics.