Molly Harris

Molly Harris is a PhD candidate in the US field. Broadly, she is interested in the social and political contours of late-20th and early-21st century public health and environmental history. Molly’s dissertation, titled ‘Shortcomings That Plague’: Prevention Politics in the Austerity Era uncovers the late-20th century policy history of preventive health, particularly as it pertains to corporate pollution, chronic illness, and federal austerity.  Molly’s dissertation focuses on the period from 1979 to 1994, with particular emphasis on the Reagan years.

 

Molly received a Bachelor of Arts from McGill University in 2018 and a Master of Arts in American Studies from Columbia University in 2020. 

 

In the 2025-2026 academic year, Molly is the Birdsall National Fellow at the Jefferson Scholars Foundation. From 2022-2025, Molly’s work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. In 2021, Molly was a Graduate Policy Fellow at Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies.

 

Please feel free to reach out with questions about federal austerity and health, welfare, and environmental policy during the 1970s and 1980s.