Annual Lectures

Annual Lectures

Each year, the Associates host a lecture in the Historical Library. Past speakers have included Nobel Laureates, writers, professors and Surgeons General who have lectured on a wide variety of topics relating to medicine.


Medical library associates annual lecture

Past Lectures

Year Speaker Talk
2024 Linda Mayes, MD
Arnold Gesell Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics and Psychology in the Yale Child Study Center; Chair, Child Study Center
"Homecomings: Anchoring Ourselves in Place"
2023 Gregg Gonsalves, PhD
Associate Professor of Epidemiology (Microbial Diseases); Associate (Adjunct) Professor of Law, Yale Law School; Affiliated Faculty, Program in Addiction Medicine; Co-Director, Global Health Justice Partnership; Affiliated Faculty, Yale Institute for Global Health
"We Will Be Citizens: AIDS Activism and Global Health Justice"
2022 Serap Aksoy, PhD
Professor of Epidemiology (Microbial Diseases) at Yale School of Public Health; Affiliated Faculty at Yale Institute for Global Health
"Advancing Global Public Health: Building Bridges Across Disciplines and Advocating for Evidence-Based Health Policies" (CC available)
2021 Nita Ahuja, MD, MBA, FACS
Chair of the Department of Surgery at Yale School of Medicine, Chief of Surgery at Yale New Haven Hospital
"Epigenetic Health: Rethinking Aging and Cancer"
2020 Cancelled due to COVID-19  
2019 Akiko Iwasaki, PhD
Waldemar von Zedtwitz Professor of Immunobiology and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
"Learning Immunology From Viruses"
2018

Laura Niklason, MD, PhD
Nicholas Greene Professor of Anesthesiology and Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Yale School of Medicine

"How Cell Therapy and Regenerative Medicine is Changing Human Disease"
2017 Sten Vermund, MD, PhD
Anna M.R. Lauder Professor of Public Health; Dean of Public Health; Professor of Pediatrics, Yale School of Medicine
"HIV/AIDS from A(labama) to Z(ambia): Research and response since 1981"
2016 Ruslan Medzhitov, PhD
David W. Wallace Professor of Immunobiology; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
"Immune System in Health and Disease"
2015 Unni Karunakara, MD
Senior Fellow, Jackson Insitute for Global Affairs; Past International President of Médecins Sans Frontières
"Humanitarian Duties and Action"
2014 James E. Rothman, MD, PhD
Nobel Laureate; Fergus F. Wallace Professor of Biomedical Science and Chemistry; Chairman and professor of Cell Biology and Professor of Chemistry, Yale University
"Bubbles in Living Cells"
2013 John Gaddis, PhD
Pulitzer Prize Winner; Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History, Yale University
"Writing George Kennan's Biography"
2012 Gaddis Smith, PhD
Larnde Professor of History Emeritus, Yale University
"The Medical School's Close Call: A Crisis in the Middle of the 20th Century"
2011 Jonathan Spence, PhD
Sterling Professor of History Emeritus, Yale University
"The Great Might-Have-Been: A Chinese Visitor to Robert Boyle"
2010 David W. Blight, PhD
Professor of American History, Yale University
"Slaves No More: Two Recently Discovered Slave Narratives & the Story of Emancipation"
2009 Michael J. Donoghue, PhD
Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University
"Charles Darwin, the Tree of Life, and the Future of Biodiversity"
2008 James H. Billington, PhD
Librarian/Director, Library of Congress
"Freedom as a Strategy: The Importance of an Ideal"
2007 Robert A. Weinberg, PhD
Professor of Biology, MIT; Member, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
"Origin of Human Malignancies"
2006 Harvey V. Fineberg, MD, PhD
President, Institute of Medicine, National Academies of Science
"Preparing for Avian Influenza: Lessions from the Swine Flu Affair"
2005 Douglas Melton, PhD
Thomas Dudly Cabot Professor in the Natural Sciences, Harvard University
"The Future of Pancreatic Stem Cells and Diabetes"
2004 Peter C. Agre, MD
Nobel Laureate in Chemistry
"The Road to Stockholm and Back: Comments on the Journey"
2003 Dean Kamen
Award winning inventor of many medical advances including Insulin infusion pumps, home renal dialysis units, the Ibot wheelchair, and the Segway Human Transporter; Founder of FIRST foundation
 
2002 J. Craig Ventner, PhD
Chief Scientist and Chairman of the Board, The Institute for Genomic Research
"Sequencing the Human Genome"
2001 Joshua Lederberg, PhD
Nobel Laureate; Emeritus President, Rockefeller University
"Evolution of Infectious Disease"
2000 Dr. Richard Horton
Editor-in-chief, The Lancet
"The Journalization of Science: Treachery versus Trust"
1999 David Satcher, MD, PhD
United States Surgeon General; United States Assistant Secretary for Health
 
1998 John H. Lienhard, MD
Anderson Professor, University of Houston; Author and voice of National Public Radio
"The Engines of Our Ingenuity"
1997 Daniel S. Goldin
Administrator of NASA
"NASA and Medicine"
1996 Jerome P. Kassirer, MD, MACP
Editor, New England Journal of Medicine; Professor of Medicine, Tufts University; Member, Institute of Medicine
"Tomorrow's Journals: In Ink or in Bytes?"
1995 Jaroslav Pelikan, PhD
Sterling Professor of History, Yale University
"Amnesia, An Oppupational Disease of Professionals - and Its Antidote"
1994 Arvin Brown
Artistic Director, Long Wharf Theatre, New Haven
"Theatre as Literature"
1993 Dr. Holly Atkinson
Director of Lifetime Medical Television
"The Visualization of Medical Knowledge: A Personal and Professional Odyssey from Text to Television"
1992 Donald Lamm
President, W.W. Norton Publishing Company
"Capsules, Caplets, and Tablets: How Americans Read Today"
1991 Dr. John Brademas
President, New York University, Former Congressman
"Higher Education in the '90s: Prospects and Problems"
1990 Donald Kagan, PhD
Dean of Yale College
"Liberal Education"
1989 Justice Harry A. Blackmun
Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
"Medicine and the Constitution"
1988 Anatole Broyard
Author, Former editor of the New York Times Revew of Books
"The Pathology of Reading"
1987 William F. Buckley Jr.
Author, Journalist, TV Commentator
"The Genesis of a Hero"
1986 Peter Gay, PhD
Sterling Professor of History, Yale University
"On Writing a Biography of Freud or Psychoanalyzing the Psychoanalyst"
1985 Dean Leon Rosenberg,  MD
Former dean of Yale School of Medicine, Yale University
"The Reflections of a Green Dean"
1984 Dr. Jeremiah Barondess
President of New York Academy of Medicine
"Cushing and Osler: the Evolution of a Friendship"
1983 John Irving
Author
"From Fact to Fiction: the Anatomy of a Story"
1982 Dr. Lawrence K. Altman
Science Editor, New York Times
"Medicine and the Press, an Historical Overview"
1981 Herman Liebert
Librarian Emeritus, Beinecke Library, Yale University
"Investing in Manuscripts and Rare Books"
1980 Dr. William Butterfield
Trustee of the Associates
"Medical Caricatures of Thomas Rowlandson"
1979 Dr. Norman Rich, MD, FACS, DMCC, MC
Founding chair of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Department of Surgery
"History of Vascular Surgery"
1978 Bern Dibner
Curator, Burndy Library
"Book collecting and its culmination in the Burndy Library"
1972 Dr. Martin M. Cummings
Director of the National Library of Medicine
"Problems of Scientific Publications"
1971 Dr. Whitfield J. Bell
Librarian of the American Philosophical Society
"The Library of the Pennsylvania Hospital"
1970 Dr. Saul Jarcho
Editor-in-chief, Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine
"Some Experiences with Books and Libraries"
1969 Dr. George Rosen, PhD
Professor of medical history and public health, Yale University
 
1958 Dr. Frank B. Rogers
Director of the National Library of Medicine
"Books and Medicine"
1949 First Meeting of the Associates and Trustees; Unveiling of Harvey Cushing Bronze Bust