Emma Wathen

Biography

I study disability and reproduction in the twentieth-century United States, drawing from the fields of disability studies, U.S. history, history of medicine, and gender and sexuality studies. My dissertation explores parenting with a disability in the postwar United States amid the expansion of family policing systems and the growth of the disability rights movement. I am also a cohost for the Disability History Association Podcast.

Education

M.A., History of Science, Medicine, and Technology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2021
B.A., History & Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2017

Field

• Gender and Women’s History
• History of Science, Medicine, and Technology

MA Title

• “Known to Be Harmless, Harmed to Be Known: Medical Experimentation on Pregnant Women and Infants in 1930s America”

Working Dissertation Title

• “Willing and Disabled: Disability, Parenting, and Activism in the Postwar United States”

Selected Publications

• “These ‘Children Won’t Become Women’: Depo-Provera, Intellectual Disability, and the Indian Health Service,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (in press).
• “Access Denied: Brigid McGuire vs. the University of Wisconsin-Madison.” Public History Project Blog, April 1, 2020. <https://publichistoryproject.wisc.edu/access-denied-brigid-mcguire-vs-the-university-of-wisconsin-madison/>
• “In Sickness and In Health?: Wisconsin’s Eugenic Marriage Law, 1913-1981.” ARCHIVE: An Undergraduate Journal of History 21 (May 2018): 61-85.

Selected Awards

• Shryock Medal, American Association for the History of Medicine (2025)
• Alida Boorn Disability Studies and Disabled Scholar Award, Western History Association (2024)
• Campus-Wide Early Excellence in Teaching Award (2023)
• Deborah A. Hobbins Graduate Student Award in Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice (2022–23)

Professional Affiliations

• American Association for the History of Medicine
• Disability History Association

Courses Taught as TA

• History 101: American History to the Civil War Era: The Origin & Growth of the U.S.
• History of Science 133: Biology and Society, 1950-Today
• History of Science 212: Bodies, Diseases, and Healers: An Introduction to the History of Medicine
• Medical History and Bioethics 553: International Health and Global Society

Courses Taught as Instructor

• History of Science 212: Bodies, Diseases, and Healers: An Introduction to the History of Medicine