Alexander I. Parry, Ph.D.

Alexander Parry, Ph.D., M.A., is a historian of medicine and an Assistant Professor of Health Humanities and Bioethics at the University of Rochester Medical Center. He received his M.A. in Literary and Cultural Studies from the University of Oklahoma and his Ph.D. in the History of Science, Technol...

Alexander Parry, Ph.D., M.A., is a historian of medicine and an Assistant Professor of Health Humanities and Bioethics at the University of Rochester Medical Center. He received his M.A. in Literary and Cultural Studies from the University of Oklahoma and his Ph.D. in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine from Johns Hopkins University. His research focuses on home injuries and consumer product safety in the United States from the early-1900s to the present.

His current book project, Home Safe Home: Consumer Product Safety and the Making of Home Injury Prevention in Twentieth-Century America, analyzes how U.S. society relied on education, markets for “safe” goods, and private product testing to control home injuries. Dr. Parry has written numerous articles on domestic health and safety for journals including Technology and Culture, Isis, the Journal of Medical Humanities, and JAMA Pediatrics.

Dr. Parry is the Director of the Advanced Certificate in Health Humanities program at URMC, the history editor for the Pediatric Humanities section of the Journal of Pediatrics, and the co-founder and coordinator of the interdisciplinary Injury Studies Network. The Network is an international community of researchers, practitioners, artists, and advocates committed to the study of injuries. Focusing on unintentional injuries and violence, its members investigate the ways individuals and groups live with and make meaning out of harmful events. For more information, see the Network website at www.injurystudies.org.

Dr. Parry teaches courses on the histories of modern medicine, risk and regulation, the body, and health communication. He welcomes students at all levels interested in the past and present of safety and injuries, public health, medicine and the home, medical advertising, and child health and safety.

Research Areas: History of public health, injury studies, consumer product safety, child health and safety, health and the home, history of regulation, history of advertising, history of modern medicine