AGA PDT 2026

Alexandra Lord
Chair, Division of Medicine and Science
Smithsonian National Museum of American History


Alexandra M. Lord is the Chair of the Medicine and Science Division at the National Museum of American History and a curator of the history of medicine. She received her A.B. from Vassar College and her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is the recipient of various fellowships, including most recently a Fulbright Fellowship, as well as multiple awards for her book, Condom Nation: The US Government’s Sex Education Campaign from World War I to the Internet. Her publications on both British and American history of medicine have appeared in both scholarly journals and the mainstream media. Her latest project entitled In the Wake uses her own family’s multi-generational history of suicide to explore the impact of suicide on families over the last 150 years. Between 2016 and 2018, she was the President of the National Council on Public History, the nation’s largest public history organization. Between 2020 and 2022, she served on the Board of Directors of the American Council of Learned Societies and between 2019 and 2025, she served on the Landmarks Committee of the National Park Service.

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