I am an Assistant Professor of the History of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. I previously held the position of Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Program in the History of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Hospital with an additional appointment as a Visiting Assistant Professor of History at UCLA, and Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Loyola Marymount University. I attended Columbia University, where I received my PhD in History, and a Graduate Certificate from the Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality. My research focuses on the history of global health, indigenous medicine, and gender in 20th century Mali. Historically, Malians relied on several different kinds of older women reproductive specialists (such as midwives and nuptial counselors), whose interventions helped women to become socially-recognized mothers. When the French colonized Mali, they introduced biomedicine (sometimes called "Western medicine"), which had its own forms of maternal medicine. My research emphasizes how indigenous women specialists shaped the form of the biomedical health system. I became interested this topic while living in Bamako from 2008-2013. I worked for a public health non-profit which promoted community engagement in health and access to primary health care. My professional experiences made me curious why some forms of local knowledge were considered therapeutic, and others were not.

I received my B.A. from Wesleyan University with High Honors in History, in 2008. Following a semester abroad in Cameroon, I conducted additional summer research for my honors thesis which explored the history of northern Cameroon. I was able to return to Cameroon from 2010-2011 under the auspices of a Fulbright Research Fellowship at the University of Maroua. I focused on the history of anti-colonial political activism in northern Cameroon in the 1950s, and the political ramifications of working-class interracial relationships in this period.

Please feel free to contact me at:

dgolasze [at] uab.edu

dcg2142 [at] columbia.edu