David Jones
Associate professor of the history and culture of science and technology, MacVicar Faculty Fellow
areas of expertise: history of decision making in cardiac therapeutics, history of medicine, medical ethics, health policy, heart disease, cardiology, cardiac surgery, health disparities, epidemics and infectious disease, race and science, health and medicine
David Jones completed his AB at Harvard College in 1993 (History and Science), and then pursued both a PhD in history of science at Harvard University and an MD at Harvard Medical School, receiving both in 2001. After an internship in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital and Boston Medical Center, he trained as a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and McLean Hospital, and then worked for two years as a staff psychiatrist in the Psychiatric Emergence Service at Cambridge Hospital.
In 2005, he joined the faculty at MIT, where he is now sssociate professor of the history and culture of science and technology. From 2004-2008, Jones directed the Center for the Study of Diversity in Science, Technology, and Medicine at MIT, organizing a successful series of conferences about race, science and technology. In 2009, he was appointed as a MacVicar Faculty Fellow. He also teaches as a lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
His initial research focused on epidemics among American Indians, resulting in a book, Rationalizing Epidemics: Meanings and Uses of American Indian Mortality since 1600 (Harvard University Press, 2004), and several articles. Jones has also examined human subjects research, Cold War medicine, HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, and the history of cardiac surgery. His current research explores the history of decision making in cardiac therapeutics, attempting to understand how cardiologists and cardiac surgeons implement new technologies of cardiac revascularization. This research is supported by an Investigator Award in Health Policy Research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, by the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making and by the National Science Foundation.
request an interview: Sarah McDonnell | 617-253-8923 | s_mcd@mit.edu