About Us

Our Mission

We are a community of scholars focused on the historical and sociocultural contexts of health and disease as well as clinical and scientific practices. We direct postdoctoral fellows in the social studies of medicine and are the home for the Social Sciences Track of the UCLA-Caltech Medical Scientist Training Program. Through the Leo Rangell Professorial Endowment, we organize educational and research programs designed to further Dr. Rangell's interests in psychoanalysis and social medicine and to attract young physicians and researchers into careers where they will apply psychoanalytic methods and will work with underserved populations with mental illness. Working with the UCLA Biomedical Library History and Special Collections, we develop and help to provide research access to archival collections in the areas of neuroscience (Neuroscience History Archives and Society for Neuroscience), mental health, and pain research (International Association for the Study of Pain).