Hi,
I'm Breeanna Elliott,
PhD Candidate @ Yale

I am Breeanna

I'm a fourth-year doctoral student in the History of Science and Medicine Program. I specialize in African history and study transformations in healing cultures born from migrations and environmental change. My broad focus is on the history of East Africa and the Western Indian Ocean, specifically that of Madagascar and Tanzania. My doctoral research emphasizes the role of ancestral spirits in histories of regional pharmacopeia and bioprospecting by recognizing them as active and independent political agents in the cross-cultural negotiations of health, healing, and illness in the Western Indian Ocean. My methodologies include ethnography, archival research, oral history, and ethnobotany, and I work across the disciplines of anthropology, history, and science and technology studies. My primary research languages are French, Malagasy, and Swahili.

Prior to Yale, I received my A.B. in History and African and African American Studies from Harvard College. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on the legal precarity of enslaved women’s lives during the 19th and 20th century British-led abolition along the Swahili Coast.

I am passionate about education and also earned my teacher licensure from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2015. I currently work as a Writing Fellow at the Graduate Writing Lab and a McDougal Teaching Fellow at the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning.