Marcos Cueto

I was born and raised in Lima. I was interested in social history and studied at the Universidad Católica of Peru. When I pursued a masters and a doctoral degree at Columbia University in the 1980s, I found a unique combination of professors working in Latin American social history and history of medicine in Brazil. As a result, I began to explore the possibilities of a social history of science and medicine in Peru. I also spent one year in the Science, Technology and Society Program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a postdoctoral Mellon Fellow. In the early 1990s, I began teaching the history of public health at an important medical school of Peru. I also became a member of the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, an NGO created in the 1960s devoted to interdisciplinary studies in the social sciences. During this period, I learned from students and colleagues, usually not historians who worked on political science, health policy, medical anthropology or socio-medical studies. I was frequently asked to demonstrate the relevance of history to their fields and I tried to respond to the best of my abilities. For example, I emphasized that history analyzes problems that are similar to what we experience today.I have worked on the role played by the Rockefeller Foundation in Latin American science and medicine, on the history of international health in the 20th century, and in the diverse responses and perceptions of epidemic diseases. I am also interested in more recent developments such the history of AIDS in Peru. Presently, I am completing a manuscript of the history of the Pan American Health Organization. In 2002, I was part of an international group of public health experts in a Fulbright Program titled "Challenges of Health in a Borderless World." One of the goals of the Program was to understand the background of international health during the late 20th century. At the end of this rich experience, I designed my project for the Wilson Center. My work has received awards such as the Henry Schuman Prize of the U.S. History of Science Society and the Premio Iberoamericano of Latin American Studies Association, as well as grants from the Pan American Health Organization, the Rockefeller Archive Center, the Social Science Research Council, and the Guggenheim Foundation.

 

Education

B.A. (1982) History, Universidad Católica, Lima; M.A. (1983) History, Columbia University, New York; Ph.D. (1988) History, Columbia University

 

Subjects

Latin America,Peru,Public Health

 

Experience

• Professor, Department of Sociomedical Sciences, School of Public Health, University Cayetano Heredia, Lima
• New Century Scholar, Fulbright Program, "Challenges of Health in a Borderless World," 2002
• Visiting Professor, Center of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, New York University, spring 2001
• Associate Researcher, Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, Lima

Expertise

Latin American history of public health; history of global/international health; history of 20th century Peru.