Shannon Withycombe is Associate Professor of History at the University of New Mexico where her courses focus on the history of medicine and gender, including classes on the development of modern medicine, the history of reproduction, sex and sexuality, and public health and infectious disease in American history. She is the author of Lost: Miscarriage in Nineteenth-Century America (Rutgers University Press, 2018). Her research on the history of miscarriage, pregnancy, and abortion has appeared in both academic journals, such as Social History of Medicine and Journal of Women’s History, as well as popular publications like Nursing Clio, Zócalo Public Square, and the Washington Post. Her other recent publications include “How Science is Made: Nineteenth-Century Embryological and Fetal Interpretations,” in Abortion Care as Moral Work: Ethical Considerations of Maternal and Fetal Bodies edited by Johanna Schoen, “Teaching Graduate Students about Ethics,” in Do Less Harm: Ethical Questions for Health Historians edited by Courtney Thompson and Kylie Smith, and “No One Has the Same Forty Weeks,” in The Nursing Clio Reader: Histories of Sex, Reproduction, and Justice. She has also served as an expert witness in nineteenth-century abortion for legal cases such as Adkins v. State of Idaho. Her next book will explore the development of prenatal care in early-twentieth-century America, the zeal for infant mortality research that informed this new field, and the racist biology built into the foundation of this ubiquitous public health program.
Favorite UW memory: sitting at the Terrace with history of medicine and science friends and a pitcher of Oberon playing euchre.
My time at UW not only provided me with historical and pedagogical training but also a sense of curiosity that I endeavor to pass along to all of my students. I also left UW with valuable and cherished relationships.