College of Pharmacy: Ray Symposium

The 19th Annual Ray Symposium – March 20, 2025, 12:00 -1:00 p.m. (virtual presentation)

Olivia Campbell is the New York Times bestselling author of Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine and Sisters in Science: How Four Women Physicists Escaped Nazi Germany and Made Scientific History. She is also an editor at Dotdash Meredith and Everyday Health, a thesis advisor for Johns Hopkins University’s science writing program, and a regular contributor to National Geographic. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, History.com, The Guardian, Scientific American, Aeon, STAT News, Undark, and New York Magazine, among others.

“Women in White Coats” tells the remarkable story of three Victorian women who broke down barriers in the medical field to become the first women doctors, changing how women received health care. In the early 1800s, women were dying in large numbers from treatable diseases because they avoided receiving medical care. Examinations performed by male doctors were often demeaning and even painful. In addition, women faced stigma from illness. With gripping storytelling based on extensive research and access to archival documents, Women in White Coats tells the courageous history these three women made by becoming doctors, detailing the boundaries they broke of gender and science to reshape how we receive medical care today.