Faculty & Staff: Howard Markel

Howard Markel, M.D., Ph.D. is the George E. Wantz Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine, Professor of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases, Professor of History, Professor of Health Management and Policy, Professor of Psychiatry, and Director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan.  He was educated at the University of Michigan (A.B., 1982, summa cum laude; M.D., 1986, cum laude) and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Hospital (Intern, Resident and Fellow, 1986-1993 and Ph.D, 1994).  He joined the Michigan faculty in 1993.

From 2005 to 2006, Dr. Markel served as a historical consultant on pandemic influenza preparedness planning for the United States Department of Defense.  From 2006 to the present, he serves as the principal historical consultant on pandemic preparedness for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In May of 2007, Dr. Markel’s name was added to the masthead of The Journal of the American Medical Association, as “Contributing Writer” and for which he writes commentaries on the history and sociology of medicine in his column, Literatim.

Most recently, Dr. Markel's collaborative study with the Global Migration and Quarantine Division of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the 1918-19 influenza pandemic has played a major role in shaping the policies of the federal government, nations around the glove, and the World Health Organization as they consider how to mitigate future pandemics.

 A critically acclaimed historian of medicine, Dr. Markel is the author, co-author, co-editor of ten books including the award winning Quarantine!  East European Jewish Immigrants and the New York City Epidemics of 1892 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997; paperback JHU Press, 1999) and When Germs Travel: Six Major Epidemics That Have Invaded America Since 1900 and the Fears They Have Unleashed (Pantheon Books, 2004; paperback, Vintage/Random House, 2005).  His newest book, William and Sigmund: How the Brilliant Drs. Halsted and Freud Discovered Cocaine, Struggled to Break Free of its Addictive Grip, and Changed the World will be published in the fall of 2009 by Pantheon Books/Alfred A. Knopf.

Dr. Markel has contributed over 200 articles to scholarly publications and popular periodicals, from The New England Journal of Medicine, American Journal of Public Health, and The Lancet to The New York Times, Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic, The New Republic, International Herald Tribune, and The Wall Street Journal. In May 2007, Dr. Markel was appointed as a contributing writer and columnist for The Journal of the American Medical Association.  He has also appeared on numerous national radio and television news broadcasts or documentaries about the history of medicine and public health for NPR (All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Market Place), PBS (Nova, Frontline, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer), BBC, CNN, MSNBC, and the History Channel.

Professor Markel’s contributions have been recognized by numerous grants, honors and awards from national foundations, the federal government, and academic societies. In 1998, he was named a Centennial Historian of the City of New York and was an inaugural fellow at the Center for Scholars and Writers of the New York Public Library from 1999-2000; in 2003 he received the Arthur Viseltear Award from the American Public Health Association.  Most prominently, in 2008, he was elected as a Member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science of the United States of America.