Applications for 2024 fellowships are closed. The application period for 2025 fellowships will open later in the spring.

Background

The Paul Klemperer Fellowship in the History of Medicine supports research using the Library's resources for scholarly study of the history of medicine. It is intended specifically for a scholar in residence at the Library.

The Klemperer Fellow is expected to spend at least four weeks in New York City, working in the New York Academy of Medicine Library. Fellows are required to make a public presentation about their project at NYAM, to contribute a post for our blog, and to submit a final report on work done at the Library by the end of the award period. All fellowship work must be completed during the calendar year for which the fellowship is awarded.

Eligibility Requirements

We invite applications from anyone, regardless of citizenship, academic discipline, or academic status. Preference will be given to (1) those whose research will take advantage of resources that are uniquely available at NYAM, and (2) individuals in the early stages of their careers. Applicants should provide specific information in their proposals about the collection items they plan to use, either by including a bibliography of resources they intend to consult or discussing those items in detail in the context of the application essay.

Application Process and Instructions

Please read the instructions below to assist you in completing the application form. If you have questions about the instructions, the application process, or the Library’s collections, please call 212-822-7313 or send email to  history@nyam.org. Applicants are encouraged to call or email for more information about the collections.

A complete application includes: 

Please submit your application electronically.
Email your materials as attachments to history@nyam.org.
Attachments must be in Word, Adobe PDF, or Rich Text Format.
Please include the appropriate extension in filename and give your application an easily understood name, i.e. "YourNameFellowshipApp.pdf"

Letters of recommendation should be emailed as attachments to history@nyam.org by the recommender, not by the applicant.

Deadline

Current applications are for fellowships that may be used between January 1 and December 31, 2024. Applications are due by the end of the day on Friday, August 25, 2023. Letters of recommendation are due by the end of the day on Monday, August 28, 2023. Applicants will be notified of whether or not they have received a fellowship by Friday, October 13, 2023.

Award Information

Each Klemperer fellow receives a stipend of $5,000 to support travel, lodging and incidental expenses for a flexible period between January 1 and December 31, 2023. The Klemperer Fellow is expected to spend at least four weeks in New York City, working at the New York Academy of Medicine Library. Besides completing a research project, each fellow will be expected to make a public presentation at NYAM, contribute a post to our blog, and submit a final report. All fellowship work must be completed during the calendar year in which the fellowship is awarded.

The selection committee, comprising prominent historians and medical humanities scholars, will choose the fellow from the pool of applications. These fellowships are awarded directly to the individual applicant and not to the institution where he or she may normally be employed. None of the fellowship money is to be used for institutional overhead. There is a single application for the Klemperer and Helfand fellowships. Applicants do not need to specify for which award they are applying; the committee will make the decision about which fellowship would be most appropriate.

Publications

Any publications resulting from work supported by the Fellowships must acknowledge the assistance received from the New York Academy of Medicine Library. Copies of such publications should be submitted to the Library.

Contact information

Historical Collections
The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10029
Email: history@nyam.org
Telephone: 212-822-7313


Current & Previous Recipients 
2023

Anastasiia Zaplatina, "The American-Soviet Medical Society (1943-1947): Academic Exchanges between Allies
and their Cold War Legacy"

2022

Jamie Marsella, "Religion, Eugenics, and the New York Babies Welfare Association, 1908-1919"

2021

No Klemperer Fellow

2020

Eileen Wallis, "Textbook Cases: American Medicine, Institutionalization, and the 'Feeble-Minded', 1870-1920"

2019

Tina Peabody, "Wretched Refuse: Garbage and the Making of New York"

2018

Andrew Seaton, "The British National Health Service in Anglo-American Debate, 1948 to the Present” 

2017

Lauren MacIvor Thompson, "Suffrage is not the Goal: Medicine and Law in the Early Birth Control Movement"

2016

Jaipreet Virdi, "Collegiality & Alliances: The Transforming Landscape of Otology and Hearing Loss, 1900-1950"

2014-2015

Heidi Knoblauch, "Medical Photography, Record Keeping and the Doctor Patient Relationship: The Photographic Department at Bellevue Hospital, 1868-1906"

2013-2014

Nick Wilding, "Reading William Harvey in Naples: the Loeb copy in context"

2012-2013

Benjamin Breen, "Tropical Transplantations: Medicine, Globalization and the Drug Trade in the Portuguese and British Empires, 1640-1750"

2011-2012

Katherine Arner, "Making Yellow Fever Atlantic: Relocating America in the Geopolitics of Disease and Disease Knowledge in the Atlantic World, 1790-1830"

2010-2011

Heiko Pollmeier, "The German Medical Community in New York City, 1857-1917. Networks -- Media -- Institutions."

2009-2010

Andrew Curran, "The Anatomy of Blackness: Preternatural Histories of the African in the French Enlightenment Life Sciences"

2008-2009

Adrienne Phelps Coco, "A Brooklyn Enigma: The Controversial Disabilities and Mystical Abilities of Mollie Fancher"

2007-2008

Delia Gavrus, "The Crisis in Neurology, 1920-1940: The Rhetoric of Therapeutic Superiority in the Construction of Professional Boundaries"

2006-2007

Frederick W. Gibbs, "The Natural Philosophy of Poison: Medical Treatises on Poison and Their Influence Circa 1300-1600"

2005-2006

Daniel Margocsy, “The Commerce of Natural Philosophy: Scientific Secrets in Early Modern Europe”

2004-2005

Britta McEwen, “Viennese Sexual Knowledge as Science and Social Reform Movement, 1900-1934”

2003-2004

Sarah Tracy, “From Vice to Disease: Alcoholism in America, 1870-1920”

2002-2003

Lynda Ellen Payne, "Bodysnatching, Dissecting, and the Sensibilities of Medical Men in Eighteenth-Century Britain"

2001-2002

Kenton Kroker, "The First Modern Plague? An Historical Examination of the Role of Epidemic Encephalitis in the Development of Neurology and Public Health in the United States, 1919-1939"

2000-2001

Carla Bittel, "'The Creation of a Scientific Spirit': Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Politics of Gender and Science in Late Nineteenth-Century New York"

1999-200:

Eric Schneider, "Drugs and Drug Use in Mid-Twentieth Century New York"

1998-1999:

Chandak Sengoopta, "The Glands of Life: Endocrine Research and the Redefinition of Masculinity and Femininity, 1840-1940"

1997-1998

Elisa Becker, "Forensic Psychiatry in Late Imperial Russia"

1996-1997

Russell Viner, "Early Social Medicine in New York City: Abraham Jacobi and the German Community"