Scholarship and Biography

Wangui Muigai is a historian of medicine and science. Her research centers on race, gender, and ethical issues in health and health care. A 2022 Andrew Carnegie Fellow for her work "that addresses important and enduring issues confronting our society," her scholarship has been supported by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Association for the History of Medicine, and Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

She is completing her first book, a history of Black infant mortality, that is forthcoming with Harvard University Press. Her second book project examines the history and ethics of Black women's trust in medicine. It is supported by a multi-year fellowship from the Greenwall Foundation Faculty Scholars Program in Bioethics.

At Brandeis she is the 2021 recipient of the Michael L. Walzer '56 Award for Teaching and has developed popular courses on Race and Science, African Americans and Health, Health Activism, and an upper-level course on Infant Mortality. She advises graduate and undergraduate students in histories of science, health, and reproduction.

Honors

Fellowship of Woodrow Wilson Scholars
Princeton University (United States, Princeton), 2015-2016
Shryock Medal
American Association for the History of Medicine (United States, Richmond) - AAHM, 2017
History Fellow
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (United States, Washington D.C.) - ACOG, 2017
HistoryMakers Archive Grant
HistoryMakers (United States, Chicago), 2018
Theodore and Jane Norman Award for Faculty Scholarship
Brandeis University (United States, Waltham), 2019
Karen Buhler-Wilkerson Faculty Research Fellowship, Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing
University of Pennsylvania (United States, Philadelphia), 2019
Nursing Clio Prize for Best Journal Article
Nursing Clio, 2020
Jack D. Pressman-Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Development Award in 20th Century History of Medicine or Biomedical Sciences
American Association for the History of Medicine (United States, Richmond) - AAHM, 2020
Michael L. Walzer ‘56 Award for Teaching
Brandeis University (United States, Waltham), 2021
Andrew Carnegie Fellow
Carnegie Corporation of New York (United States, New York), 2022
Greenwall Faculty Scholar
Greenwall Foundation (United States, New York), 2022-2025
Bernstein Faculty Fellow
Brandeis University (United States, Waltham), 2022

Organizational Affiliations

Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies and History, Department of African and African American Studies, Brandeis University

Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies and History, Department of History, Brandeis University

Affiliated Faculty, Health: Science, Society and Policy Program, Brandeis University

Education

Princeton University
Ph.D.
Princeton University
M.A.
Harvard University
A.B.