Jacalyn Duffin

Stanley's Dream: The Medical Expedition to Easter Island

Jacalyn Duffin, MD, PhD, is a hematologist and historian who held the Hannah Chair of the History of Medicine at Queen’s University from 1988 to 2017.

A former President of both the American Association for the History of Medicine and the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, she is the author or editor of ten books and many articles, holds several awards for teaching and research, and is a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. A supporter of medical humanities, she has been a contributing editor of the online Literature, Arts and Medicine database since 1995.

Her research focuses on disease, technology, religion, and health policy. She runs an activist website for the current drug shortage problem and a collaborative translation project for the 17th-century Latin author Paolo Zacchia. Her most recent research was on the history of the Medical Expedition to Easter Island, led by Canada in 1964-65 about which she will speak in Riga.