Rena Selya

Rena Selya is an historian and archivist of science and medicine. She has a PhD in the History of Science from Harvard University and a Masters in Library and Information Science from UCLA. Selya came to archival work after nearly twenty years as an historian of twentieth century American biomedicine, focusing on the history of molecular biology, cancer research, and neuroscience. Her work emphasizes the social and political context and applications of biomedical research. Selya has taught the history of science and medicine as well as American history at Harvard University, UCLA, and Santa Monica College. In addition, she has been a medical writer and was part of a UCLA team that researched and wrote a multi-media history of the Society for Neuroscience. Her publications include a study of how American Jewish schools teach evolution as well as an article on the Genetics Society of America’s response to the Lysenko controversy. Her book Salvador Luria: An Immigrant Biologist in Cold War America, is available from the MIT Press. https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262046466/salvador-luria/

Selya is currently the archivist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she also directs the Cedars-Sinai Living Archive program. She is a lay leader at B’nai David-Judea Congregation, and a regular volunteer with Sharsheret.