Historia Medica Lecture and Glaser Gallery Exhibit Reception

Becker Library is hosting a special event on March 18th from 4-6pm that will highlight the origins of WashU’s leadership and worldwide influence in the implementation of computers in medical research. This two-part event will feature a one-hour lecture followed by a one-hour exhibit reception on the library’s 7th floor. The event is free to attend and open to the public. Please register to attend using the link at the bottom of this page.

Lecture, 4-5pm: Comrades in Science? International Exchanges during the Cold War

In the 1960s and 1970s, Washington University emerged as a leader in the growing field of biomedical computing. At the same time, in the context of the Cold War, science and technology had an increasingly prominent role in national security and foreign affairs. While the U.S. government committed more and more funding to research and development at home, scholars also had new opportunities to participate in exchanges abroad -- including with the Soviet Union and China, which had previously been less accessible. Washington University biomedical researchers and computer scientists seized chances both to travel overseas and to welcome their counterparts to campus. This lecture will explore their experiences to illustrate how international exchanges could both complement and complicate U.S. policy goals.

Exhibit Reception, 5-6pm: Revolutions in Biomedical Computing: The Washington University Computer Laboratories

Today, we may not think twice about the use of computers in medical research and patient care. But the idea that computers could be applied to medicine prompted skepticism as recently as the 1960s. At a time when biomedical researchers had yet to fully embrace computing, the Washington University Computer Laboratories pushed the boundaries of what many thought possible, and in the process, Washington University became an international leader in the evolution of computers in medicine and medical research.  This exhibit features just some of the ways that faculty, staff, and students from across the university invested in a collaborative approach that simultaneously advanced biomedicine and computing technologies.  Join us on March 18th from 5-6pm in Becker Library’s Glaser Gallery (7th floor) for the exhibit reception.

About the speaker and exhibit curator:  Laura Weis, PhD

Laura Weis is a project archivist at the Bernard Becker Medical Library at the Washington University School of Medicine, where she has focused on processing the papers of biomedical computing pioneer Jerome R. Cox Jr., and the records of the Institute for Biomedical Computing and its forerunners. She holds a PhD in History and Peace Studies from the University of Notre Dame, where she studied the relationship between culture and foreign relations.