Catherine Mas
Catherine Mas, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Modern American History at Florida International University.
She is a historian of science, medicine, and American society. Her research and teaching focus on the intersections of medicine, race, and religion in the U.S.-Caribbean context. She received her Ph.D. in History from Yale University in 2019, graduating from Yale's Program in the History of Science and Medicine.
Her book, Culture in the Clinic: Miami and the Making of Modern Medicine (2022), examines the historical intersections of immigration, medical anthropology, and structures of modern healthcare. It centers on Miami, Florida in the postwar period—an American city in the Caribbean basin, where migration from Latin America and the Caribbean altered the city’s social order and posed a significant challenge to the healthcare system. The book moves from Cold War experiments in community medicine to neoliberal-era HMOs and global health to trace ongoing efforts to care for and manage the diverse communities and health cultures that took root in Miami, generating knowledge and innovations that traveled far beyond the city.
Dr. Mas has broader interests in gender, science, and the politics of healing. She is currently working on a study of the transnational history of medical primatology, which focuses on the gendered and religious significance of relations between humans and nonhumans in mid-twentieth-century Cuba and the United States.
Contact
Office: Modesto A. Maidique Campus, DM 395B
Email: cmas@fiu.edu
Telephone: 305.348.6212
