Annual Lectures

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Annual Lecture of the Medical Library Associates – April 23, 2025

photo of megan l ranney Please join us April 23, 2025 for a lecture by Dr. Megan L. Ranney, Dean of the Yale School of Public Health and C.-E. A. Winslow Professor of Public Health and Professor of Emergency Medicine at Yale University. Dr. Ranney's topic is "Gun violence as a public health problem: What we know, and where we are going."

Dr. Megan L. Ranney is an emergency physician, researcher, and national advocate for innovative approaches to public health. Her research focuses on developing, testing, and disseminating digital health interventions to prevent violence and related behavioral health problems, and on COVID-related risk reduction. She has held multiple national leadership roles, including as co-founder of GetUsPPE during the COVID-19 pandemic and Senior Strategic Advisor to AFFIRM at the Aspen Institute, focused on ending gun violence through a non-partisan public health approach. She was previously the Warren Alpert Endowed Professor of Emergency Medicine, Deputy Dean of the School of Public Health, and Founding Director of the Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health at Brown University. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, a Fellow of the Aspen Health Innovators’ Fellowship, and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

She earned her bachelor's degree in history of science, graduating summa cum laude, from Harvard University; her medical doctorate, graduating Alpha Omega Alpha, from Columbia University; and her master’s degree in public health from Brown University. She completed her residency in Emergency Medicine and a fellowship in Injury Prevention Research at Brown University.

Annual Lectures

Each year, the Associates host a lecture in the Historical Library. Past speakers have included Nobel Laureates, writers, professors and Surgeons General who have lectured on a wide variety of topics relating to medicine.

Past Lectures

Year	Speaker	Talk
2024	Linda Mayes, MD Arnold Gesell Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics and Psychology in the Yale Child Study Center; Chair, Child Study Center	"Homecomings: Anchoring Ourselves in Place"
2023	Gregg Gonsalves, PhD Associate Professor of Epidemiology (Microbial Diseases); Associate (Adjunct) Professor of Law, Yale Law School; Affiliated Faculty, Program in Addiction Medicine; Co-Director, Global Health Justice Partnership; Affiliated Faculty, Yale Institute for Global Health	"We Will Be Citizens: AIDS Activism and Global Health Justice"
2022	Serap Aksoy, PhD Professor of Epidemiology (Microbial Diseases) at Yale School of Public Health; Affiliated Faculty at Yale Institute for Global Health	"Advancing Global Public Health: Building Bridges Across Disciplines and Advocating for Evidence-Based Health Policies" (CC available)
2021	Nita Ahuja, MD, MBA, FACS Chair of the Department of Surgery at Yale School of Medicine, Chief of Surgery at Yale New Haven Hospital	"Epigenetic Health: Rethinking Aging and Cancer"
2020	Cancelled due to COVID-19
2019	Akiko Iwasaki, PhD Waldemar von Zedtwitz Professor of Immunobiology and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute	"Learning Immunology From Viruses"
2018	Laura Niklason, MD, PhD Nicholas Greene Professor of Anesthesiology and Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Yale School of Medicine	"How Cell Therapy and Regenerative Medicine is Changing Human Disease"
2017	Sten Vermund, MD, PhD Anna M.R. Lauder Professor of Public Health; Dean of Public Health; Professor of Pediatrics, Yale School of Medicine	"HIV/AIDS from A(labama) to Z(ambia): Research and response since 1981"
2016	Ruslan Medzhitov, PhD David W. Wallace Professor of Immunobiology; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute	"Immune System in Health and Disease"
2015	Unni Karunakara, MD Senior Fellow, Jackson Insitute for Global Affairs; Past International President of Médecins Sans Frontières	"Humanitarian Duties and Action"
2014	James E. Rothman, MD, PhD Nobel Laureate; Fergus F. Wallace Professor of Biomedical Science and Chemistry; Chairman and professor of Cell Biology and Professor of Chemistry, Yale University	"Bubbles in Living Cells"
2013	John Gaddis, PhD Pulitzer Prize Winner; Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History, Yale University	"Writing George Kennan's Biography"
2012	Gaddis Smith, PhD Larnde Professor of History Emeritus, Yale University	"The Medical School's Close Call: A Crisis in the Middle of the 20th Century"
2011	Jonathan Spence, PhD Sterling Professor of History Emeritus, Yale University	"The Great Might-Have-Been: A Chinese Visitor to Robert Boyle"
2010	David W. Blight, PhD Professor of American History, Yale University	"Slaves No More: Two Recently Discovered Slave Narratives & the Story of Emancipation"
2009	Michael J. Donoghue, PhD Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University	"Charles Darwin, the Tree of Life, and the Future of Biodiversity"
2008	James H. Billington, PhD Librarian/Director, Library of Congress	"Freedom as a Strategy: The Importance of an Ideal"
2007	Robert A. Weinberg, PhD Professor of Biology, MIT; Member, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research	"Origin of Human Malignancies"
2006	Harvey V. Fineberg, MD, PhD President, Institute of Medicine, National Academies of Science	"Preparing for Avian Influenza: Lessions from the Swine Flu Affair"
2005	Douglas Melton, PhD Thomas Dudly Cabot Professor in the Natural Sciences, Harvard University	"The Future of Pancreatic Stem Cells and Diabetes"
2004	Peter C. Agre, MD Nobel Laureate in Chemistry	"The Road to Stockholm and Back: Comments on the Journey"
2003	Dean Kamen Award winning inventor of many medical advances including Insulin infusion pumps, home renal dialysis units, the Ibot wheelchair, and the Segway Human Transporter; Founder of FIRST foundation
2002	J. Craig Ventner, PhD Chief Scientist and Chairman of the Board, The Institute for Genomic Research	"Sequencing the Human Genome"
2001	Joshua Lederberg, PhD Nobel Laureate; Emeritus President, Rockefeller University	"Evolution of Infectious Disease"
2000	Dr. Richard Horton Editor-in-chief, The Lancet	"The Journalization of Science: Treachery versus Trust"
1999	David Satcher, MD, PhD United States Surgeon General; United States Assistant Secretary for Health
1998	John H. Lienhard, MD Anderson Professor, University of Houston; Author and voice of National Public Radio	"The Engines of Our Ingenuity"
1997	Daniel S. Goldin Administrator of NASA	"NASA and Medicine"
1996	Jerome P. Kassirer, MD, MACP Editor, New England Journal of Medicine; Professor of Medicine, Tufts University; Member, Institute of Medicine	"Tomorrow's Journals: In Ink or in Bytes?"
1995	Jaroslav Pelikan, PhD Sterling Professor of History, Yale University	"Amnesia, An Oppupational Disease of Professionals - and Its Antidote"
1994	Arvin Brown Artistic Director, Long Wharf Theatre, New Haven	"Theatre as Literature"
1993	Dr. Holly Atkinson Director of Lifetime Medical Television	"The Visualization of Medical Knowledge: A Personal and Professional Odyssey from Text to Television"
1992	Donald Lamm President, W.W. Norton Publishing Company	"Capsules, Caplets, and Tablets: How Americans Read Today"
1991	Dr. John Brademas President, New York University, Former Congressman	"Higher Education in the '90s: Prospects and Problems"
1990	Donald Kagan, PhD Dean of Yale College	"Liberal Education"
1989	Justice Harry A. Blackmun Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court	"Medicine and the Constitution"
1988	Anatole Broyard Author, Former editor of the New York Times Revew of Books	"The Pathology of Reading"
1987	William F. Buckley Jr. Author, Journalist, TV Commentator	"The Genesis of a Hero"
1986	Peter Gay, PhD Sterling Professor of History, Yale University	"On Writing a Biography of Freud or Psychoanalyzing the Psychoanalyst"
1985	Dean Leon Rosenberg, MD Former dean of Yale School of Medicine, Yale University	"The Reflections of a Green Dean"
1984	Dr. Jeremiah Barondess President of New York Academy of Medicine	"Cushing and Osler: the Evolution of a Friendship"
1983	John Irving Author	"From Fact to Fiction: the Anatomy of a Story"
1982	Dr. Lawrence K. Altman Science Editor, New York Times	"Medicine and the Press, an Historical Overview"
1981	Herman Liebert Librarian Emeritus, Beinecke Library, Yale University	"Investing in Manuscripts and Rare Books"
1980	Dr. William Butterfield Trustee of the Associates	"Medical Caricatures of Thomas Rowlandson"
1979	Dr. Norman Rich, MD, FACS, DMCC, MC Founding chair of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Department of Surgery	"History of Vascular Surgery"
1978	Bern Dibner Curator, Burndy Library	"Book collecting and its culmination in the Burndy Library"
1972	Dr. Martin M. Cummings Director of the National Library of Medicine	"Problems of Scientific Publications"
1971	Dr. Whitfield J. Bell Librarian of the American Philosophical Society	"The Library of the Pennsylvania Hospital"
1970	Dr. Saul Jarcho Editor-in-chief, Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine	"Some Experiences with Books and Libraries"
1969	Dr. George Rosen, PhD Professor of medical history and public health, Yale University
1958	Dr. Frank B. Rogers Director of the National Library of Medicine	"Books and Medicine"
1949	First Meeting of the Associates and Trustees; Unveiling of Harvey Cushing Bronze Bust