Rate My Professor Kirsten Gardner

Kirsten Gardner is a Professor of History at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), serving as Director of Medical Humanities in the Department of History, Romo Endowed Professor (2023-2025), and UTSA Distinguished Teaching Professor since 2022. Affiliated faculty in Women’s Studies, she has been at UTSA for over two decades, teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in U.S. History, Women and Gender Studies, History of Medicine, Modern U.S. History, Gender and Technology, Research and Writing Practices, and Pedagogy for Historical Thinking. Gardner leads study abroad programs in Urbino, Italy, and has developed experiential learning courses in public history for the Honors College, involving visits to sites such as the San Antonio Missions, Briscoe Western Art Museum, Blackwell School, and Big Bend National Park. She earned a B.A. in History from Georgetown University, an M.A. in 1995 and Ph.D. in 1999 in History from the University of Cincinnati, and a graduate certificate in Women’s Studies from the University of Cincinnati.

Gardner’s research examines women's health, social justice, technology and healthcare, and women and the military. Her book Early Detection: Women, Cancer, and Awareness Campaigns in the Twentieth-Century United States was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2006. Key articles include “‘The Art of Insulin Treatment’: Diabetes, Insulin, and the 1920s” in the Journal of Medical Humanities (2019), “Disruption and Cancer Narratives: From Awareness to Advocacy” in Literature and Medicine (2009), “Hiding the Scars: A History of Post-Mastectomy Breast Prostheses, 1945–2000” in Enterprise & Society (2000), and “From Cotton to Silicone” in Artificial Parts, Practical Lives: Modern Histories of Prosthetics (2002). She serves as co-PI of the Democratizing Racial Justice project, a multi-year initiative funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Gardner appeared in the PBS series The American Experience: The Cancer Detectives, addressing women's activism in cancer screening development. Her teaching excellence is recognized with the UT System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award (2015), UTSA President’s Distinguished Achievement Award for Core Curriculum Teaching, and President’s Distinguished Teaching Award. As Romo Endowed Professor, she delivers annual public lectures in her field of expertise.