Dr. Ayah Nuriddin

Biography

Ayah Nuriddin is an Assistant Professor specializing in the history of medicine, with particular interests in the histories of eugenics, racial science, scientific racism, and human subjects research. Nuriddin is currently working on a book tentatively titled 'Seed Soil: Black Eugenic Thought in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,' which examines how African Americans navigated the complexities of racial science and eugenics amidst their struggles for racial justice during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This work analyzes the paradoxical ways in which African Americans engaged with and challenged scientific racism while advocating for racial equality. Additionally, it traces the ongoing legacies of racial science that continue to shape African American articulations of racial formation and health disparities. Nuriddin’s research has been supported by the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine (CHSTM) and the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute (AGHI) at Johns Hopkins University. She is an inaugural inductee of the Johns Hopkins University chapter of the Edward Bouchet Graduate Honor Society, and her work has been published in various academic journals including Historical Studies of Natural Science and the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. Prior to joining Yale, she was a Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in African American Studies at Princeton University. Nuriddin received her PhD in the History of Medicine from Johns Hopkins University and holds an MA in History and an MLS from the University of Maryland, College Park, as well as a BA in International Relations and History from American University.

Research Interests

Experience