"Roper-Hannah Chair in the History of Healthcare and Health Equity"

Dalhousie University and the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia invite applications for the Roper-Hannah Chair in the History of Healthcare and Health Equity, a tenure stream, junior or mid-career position. The successful candidate must hold a PhD (or equivalent) in the history of medicine by the position start date of July 1, 2026, and must have an established record of research excellence. The Chair will have a primary home in the History Department at Dalhousie University, and cross-appointments with History of Science and Technology (HOST) at the University of King’s College and Dalhousie’s Faculty of Medicine. The successful candidate will have the equivalent of a 2:1 teaching load, with one course taught annually in History, one in HOST, and additional teaching and curriculum development done within the Faculty of Medicine. The successful candidate will take a leading role in coordinating and developing the Certificate in Medical Humanities, helping to make Dalhousie and King’s combined community a key center of Medical Humanities through curricular innovation and a series of public-facing projects. The Chair will also be actively involved in the nation-wide community of Hannah Chairs, which are supported by AMS Healthcare, and help organize public outreach events related to Medical Humanities.

The Chair will use historical analysis to conduct, promote, and disseminate research at the intersections of the critical history of medicine/healthcare, medical ethics, and health equity. Although the specific teaching and research profile of the successful candidate will depend upon a number of factors, scholarly touchpoints of the Chair might include: complicity of medical systems in colonial structures; history of health equity framing in the healthcare system; critical global history of science and medicine, before, during and after the colonial period; medicine and healthcare beyond Eurocentric understandings and borders; critical and historically-informed interrogation of a still-largely Eurocentric understanding of bioethics and their value propositions around health and well-being. The Roper-Hannah Chair will thus be committed to developing a robust understanding of how medical traditions, healthcare systems, medical values and ethical systems change over time, and how essential an historical understanding is for getting at the origins and root causes of medical inequalities, unethical practices, disparities in the social determinants of health and disease, unequal access and outcomes of treatment, and critical perspectives on medicine, health and the human body.

Qualified candidates should submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae, a sample of published work, and the names of three potential referees. Letters of reference and teaching dossiers will only be sought after the files are reviewed.