Assistant Professor, Experiential Learning Coordinator AFAM & History
Dr. Alyssa Cole is an Assistant Professor in African American Studies, specializing in the intersections of history, health activism, and Black communities in the Midwest.
Her current untitled monograph, under contract with Johns Hopkins University Press, situates Black women’s grassroots health advocacy within the broader evolution of American medicine. By examining the early twentieth century, a period marked by medical professionalization, public health reform, and racial exclusion, her research reveals how Black women navigated and challenged dominant medical structures to promote health equity in their communities. She explores how these women operated outside mainstream institutions, often creating their own networks of care, education, and resistance. Dr. Cole’s scholarship highlights the critical role Black individuals played in shaping community health long before the civil rights era, offering a vital corrective to traditional narratives in the history of medicine.
Gender, race, medicine, and community histories in the 19th and 20th centuries.
African American Military History
Health Humanities
Digital Pedagogy in History
Publications:
Cole, Alyssa P. (in-Progress) Fredericka’s Kansas City: Medical Activism and Equity in the Early 20th Century. Under contract with Johns Hopkins Press
Cole, Alyssa P. “Healing Histories: Black Health in Alachua County – 19th Century” in African Americans in the Making of Alachua County: Past, Present, and the Future. The University of Florida Press, 2025
Education:
Ph.D. History, University of Kansas
M.A. African American Studies, University of Kansas
