Mathew Savelli
Associate Professor, Health, Aging & Society

Mat Savelli is a medical historian whose research focuses on two primary subjects: (1) the history of mental health and psychiatry (especially within Communist Eastern Europe), and (2) the history of drugs (with a focus on the global marketing of psychoactive products). He is particularly interested in the ways in which "normal" and "abnormal" behaviour get constructed and defined within medical, community, and commercial spheres.

After having completed his undergraduate education in history at McMaster, he obtained an MSc in Russian and East European Studies and a DPhil in Modern History, both from the University of Oxford. Before returning to McMaster as a faculty member in the Department of Health, Aging, and Society, he was a Haas postdoctoral fellow at the Science History Institute (Philadelphia) and held a Mellon postdoctoral fellowship in the History of Science at the University of Pittsburgh's World History Centre.