Catherine Mas

Writer & Historian

About

I write about the history of science and medicine in the United States and Cuba, bringing forgotten figures and overlooked stories back into view and exploring how they can reshape our understanding of the past.I hold a Ph.D. in History from Yale University, and my research has been supported by awards and fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. I am also a recipient of Yale’s John Addison Porter Prize.I am currently a Sloan Fellow at the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the CUNY Graduate Center. Previously, I was a professor of history at Florida International University, where I taught the history of the modern United States from a transnational perspective. Originally from Miami, Florida, I now live in New York City with my family.

Sweet Captivity

My upcoming book, Sweet Captivity, tells the story of Rosalía Abreu, a Cuban sugar heiress and forgotten foremother of modern primatology. In the early twentieth century, Abreu helped launch a new era of medical and psychological research from her castle-like home in Havana, where her extraordinary collection of apes offered scientists an unprecedented glimpse into the origins and nature of humanity.Drawing on a constellation of archives, Sweet Captivity follows a cast of human and nonhuman characters across the shifting borders of science, culture, and nation. Their forgotten stories reveal how ideas about human nature were made—and remade—and invite us to reconsider a question that has preoccupied scientists, philosophers, and ordinary people for centuries: what does it mean to be human?To be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux (USA) and Picador (UK) in 2028.

Culture in the Clinic

My first book, Culture in the Clinic: Miami and the Making of Modern Medicine, explores how Cuban and other Latin American and Caribbean immigrants transformed American medicine in post-1959 Miami. As health professionals sought new ways to serve a rapidly changing population, immigrants brought alternative approaches to healing into encounters with mainstream medicine. Miami ultimately became a testing ground for cross-cultural care and a model for the emerging field of global health. Culture in the Clinic shows how immigrants reshaped American medicine and how healthcare became a crucial site for navigating questions of culture, citizenship, and belonging.Culture in the Clinic was shortlisted for the 2025 William H. Welch Medal, awarded by the American Association for the History of Medicine.

Other Writing

"The Plantation and the Primate Laboratory," in Isis: Journal of the History of Science Society."How Not to Be an Expert," in Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences."Falling-out in Miami and the History of Culture in American Medicine," in Bulletin of the History of Medicine.“She Wears the Pants: The Reform Dress as Technology in Nineteenth-Century America,” in Technology and Culture.“Miami-Dade County has lurched rightward — but it loves ‘Obamacare’”, The Washington Post, January 23, 2023.“Miami once provided a model for diversity. Now DeSantis won it big”, The Washington Post, November 10, 2022.

Contact

I am represented by Allison Devereux at Trellis Literary Management.Send me a message using the contact form below.