Dr. Kristin Brig Ortiz

Biography

Kristin Brig-Ortiz received a Bachelor of Arts in History in 2015 and a Master of Arts in History in 2017 from the College of Charleston. Her past research has explored the history of smallpox vaccination in the nineteenth-century British Empire, with a particular interest in how vaccine production, distribution, and implementation affected relationships at local, colonial, and global levels. Currently, she is interested in the access to clean water supply in the nineteenth-century Cape Colony and Natal, especially examining the intersection of water shortages, contamination, and social/cultural tensions in port cities. Broadly, her interests include the racial and class dynamics of public health in British Africa.

Research Interests