PROF LØCHLANN JAIN

BA McGill University, Montreal, Canada; MPhil, University of Glasgow, Scotland (UK); PhD University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC)(USA).

Jain is an academic and award-winning author. Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University and Visiting Chair of Global Health and Social Medicine at King’s College London, their work aims to unsettle some of the deeply held assumptions about objectivity that underlie the history of medical research. The author’s latest work develops the concept of The Wet Net, which refers to fluid bonding among humans and animals in ways that create pathways for the transmission of pathogens. Of specific interest is mid-century bioscientific practices, such as blood harvesting and transfusion, and vaccine development and testing involving exchanges in human and animal effluvia, the risks of which have largely been disavowed.

Jain’s current book project elucidates the concept of The WetNet through a rigorous history of the hepatitis B virus and the development of the first hepatitis B vaccine.

The most recent awards bestowed upon them include the Burt McMurtry Grant, Stanford University (2024-5); the Lang Grant Award, Stanford Anthropology (2024); Clayman Fellow, Clayman Institute for Gender Research (2023-24); and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, The Guggenheim Foundation (2022-23). Previous awards include the June Roth Memorial Award for a Book in Medical Writing: American Society of Journalists and Authors (2016); Diana Forsythe Prize, Association of American Anthropology (2014); and the Edelstein Prize, Society for the History of Technology (2014).

Prof Løchlann Jain joined VIAD in 2019.