Fall 2026 Colloquium - Julia Cummiskey
Johns Hopkins University
Title: Burkitt’s Lymphoma Research in Uganda (1961-1979) and the Origins of a Modern Paradigm for Global Health Science
Abstract:: In the 1960s and 1970s, researchers based at the East African Virus Research Institute in Entebbe, Uganda joined the race to discover the first human oncovirus at the same time that they navigated the transition from colonial to independent government, a reconfiguration of research funding, and an uncertain future. In this talk, I will describe how the search for a viral cause of Burkitt’s lymphoma, a newly-discovered syndrome characterized by aggressive facial tumors, shaped knowledge of viruses, cancer, and epidemiological methods while also launching a new paradigm for global health research. I argue that the EAVRI was one of the first places to become what is now called a “local partner”, a critical component of late 20th-century global health research and category that requires greater critical analysis. This talk will describe how researchers at the EAVRI leveraged their previous experience investigating yellow fever in Uganda, how they approached the “puzzle” of Burkitt’s lymphoma, and how the cancer research established patterns that shaped later HIV/AIDS research.
Bio: Julia Cummiskey is an assistant professor of the history of medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. She earned a BA in history from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, a masters degree in public health from Columbia University in 2007 and a PhD in the History of Medicine from Johns Hopkins University in 2017. She has taught at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where she was the interim director of the Africana Studies program and she is now on the faculty of the Department of the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins where she also co-directs the Online Program in the History of Medicine.
Dr. Cummiskey’s research interrogates the history of global health—what it is, how it came to be, its limitations, and its potential. Her first book, Virus Research in Twentieth-Century Uganda: Between Local and Global was published in 2024 by Ohio University Press in the series “Perspectives on Global Health”. Her current project, tentatively titled “Selling the Good Life: A History of Public Health Communication and Marketing in Uganda” explores the rise of expertise in health communication and its growing profile within the broader sector of global health.
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