Kim Pelis, Ph.D.

Woman smiling in portrait photo
Dr. Pelis has worked at the NIH for more than 15 years, primarily in the Office of the Director, where she was lead speech writer on the NIH Director's Presentations Team and an editor for the NIH Director's Blog.  Kim joins the ONHM with experience in both academic and public history.  She earned her Ph.D. in the history of medicine from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  Prior to coming to the NIH, Kim was an assistant professor of medical history at the Uniformed Services University, across the street from the NIH, from 1998 to 2005. 

Education

  • Postdoc, History of Medicine, UCL, 1995 - 1998
  • PhD, History of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 1986 - 1994
  • BA, Great Books; Pre-med, University of Notre Dame, 1981 - 1985

Selected Publications

Book

Charles Nicolle, Pasteur’s Imperial Missionary: Typhus & Tunisia (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2006; paperback, 2013)

 Articles Include:

  • “’A Band of Lunatics down Camberwell Way’: Percy Lane Oliver and Voluntary Blood Donation in Interwar Britain,” in J. Pickstone and R. Bivins, eds., Medicine, Madness and Social History: Essays in Memory of Roy Porter (Palgrave Press, 2007)
  • “Taking Credit: The Canadian Army Medical Corps and the British Conversion to Blood Transfusion in WWI,” Journal of the History of Medicine & Allied Sciences (2001)
  • “Blood Standards and Failed Fluids: Clinic, Lab, and Transfusion Solutions in London, 1868-1916,” History of Science (2001)
  • “Transfusion, with Teeth: Re-animation and the Re-introduction of Human Transfusion to British Medical Practice, 1810-1834,” in R. Bud, B. Finn and H. Trischler, eds., Manifesting Medicine: Bodies and Machines (Harwood Academic, 1999)

Exhibit

Curator, “Thicker than Water: Blood Transfusion,” Temporary Exhibition in “Health Matters” Gallery, Science Museum, London (1996/97)