Research Interests: History of medicine; history of genetics and eugenics; risk, prediction, and insurance; history of sex and sexuality.

Ben Maldonado is a PhD candidate in the History of Science Department. His research focuses on the history of predicting longevity and the concept of biological age in the United States over the twentieth century. His work examines how various risks — risk of mortality, risk of disease, risk of longevity — were constructed through the measurement of biological indicators of age. He is interested in the different sites where experts and laypeople alike utilized longevity prediction techniques, from life insurance companies to research on radiation exposure to sexological practices. He also aims to trace how ideas of biological age intersected with the sciences of sex and race, as well as with the gendered and racialized experiences of aging. Additionally, his other research projects have engaged with the history of genetics and eugenics, including a public history project on the history of eugenics at Stanford University.

Presentations:

“Perceiving Deviancy: Robert Latou Dickinson’ Search for Autoerotic Sight, 1902 - 1950,” Annual Meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine, Ann Arbor, MI, May 13, 2023.

“Underwriting Heredity: Anglo-American Life Insurance and Tubercular Family Histories, 1875 - 1925,” Joint Atlantic Seminar for the History of Biology, New Haven, CT, April 15, 2023.

Previous Degrees:

Stanford University, B.A.