Explore the History of Medicine and Public Health

Lisa O’Sullivan, PhD, serves as Vice President and Director of The New York Academy of Medicine's Library and the Center for the History of Medicine and Public Health. O’Sullivan most recently served as Senior Curator of Medicine at the Science Museum London, where she curated the Wellcome collection, one of the world's preeminent historic medical collections. She joined the Science Museum in 2003 and worked on permanent and rotating exhibitions, including the Living Medical Traditions gallery. She was Head of Research for the Wellcome Trust-funded Brought to Life website highlighting the global reach of the Wellcome and Science Museum’s medical collections. Responsible for issues relating to human remains and culturally sensitive materials in the collections, she led the Science Museum's repatriation work.

At the Academy, O'Sullivan oversees one of the most significant collections on the history of medicine in the United States. Between 2005 and 2009, O’Sullivan was Chair of the Human Remains Subject Specialist Network, a professional UK network examining legislative and ethical issues relating to the care and display of human remains in museum collections. From 1991 until 1997 she worked with the Australian Science Archives Project, University of Melbourne, in the preservation and communication of Australia’s scientific, technological and medical heritage, where she gained extensive experience in project and human resource management. O’Sullivan completed her PhD in the Department of History at Queen Mary University of London, examining issues of health, environment, displacement, and identity, explored through the history of clinical nostalgia in 19th-century France. Her undergraduate degrees are in history and history and philosophy of science. On research sabbatical from the Science Museum over 2010 to 2011 she was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Sydney, investigating the material cultures of anthropological and anatomical collecting within the context of scientific studies of race.