Lundy Braun was a professor of

pathology Pathology is the study of disease. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in the context of modern medical treatme ...

and laboratory medicine, and

Africana studies Black studies or Africana studies (with nationally specific terms, such as African American studies and Black Canadian studies), is an interdisciplinary academic field that primarily focuses on the study of the history, culture, and politics of ...

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

, United States, who researched history of racial health disparities. She wrote ''Breathing Race Into the Machine: The Surprising Career of the Spirometer From Plantation to Genetics'' (2014), which looks at the history of correcting for race in spirometers, and for which she received the

Ludwik Fleck Prize The Ludwik Fleck Prize is an annual award given for a book in the field of science and technology studies. It was created by the 4S Council (Society for the Social Studies of Science) in 1992 and is named after microbiologist Ludwik Fleck. The pr ...

in 2018.

Career

Lundy Braun received her PhD from

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is the public health graduate school of Johns Hopkins University, a private university, private research university primarily based in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded as the Johns Hopkins ...

in 1982. Braun studied differences in health relating to race, and was professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and Africana studies. Her reviews of research around algorithms using race adjustments found that race is not often defined, and she raised the question of the role of race in medicine. Her research paper "Defining race/ethnicity and explaining difference in research studies on lung function", published in the

European Respiratory Journal The ''European Respiratory Journal'' is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal covering respirology. It was established in 1988 and is published by the European Respiratory Society, of which it is the official journal. The editor-in-chief is James ...

in 2012, looked at almost 100 years of research pertaining to lung disease. She wrote '' Breathing Race Into the Machine: The Surprising Career of the Spirometer From Plantation to Genetics'' (2014), which looked at the history of correcting for race in spirometers, and for which she received the

in 2018. In 2023, she retired and became professor emerita. On August 9, 2024, at the age of 77, she was killed after being struck by an automobile while walking near her home.

Selected publications

* (Co-author) * *

References

Living people American women historians 21st-century American historians Johns Hopkins School of Medicine alumni Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American women scientists American pathologists {{Med-bio-stub