Vincenza Mazzeo is a PhD Candidate in History at Johns Hopkins University and 2020-2021 Fellow at the Centre for Medical Humanities and Social Medicine.  She holds an H.BA from the University of Toronto and MA from Carleton University.

Vincenza’s dissertation uses oral history and women’s alternative media to examine how ideas of gender, race, health, and freedom – specifically, freedom from state-sanctioned death and slow violence – were configured in liberationist struggles across South Africa during the late 20^th century. Her research interests include histories of health and medicine, gender and sexuality studies, African history, and post-colonial studies.

Vincenza is the recipient of multiple awards and fellowships including Mellon Summer Language Funds (2020), Media@Mcgill Fellowship (2018), Institute of Health and Social Policy Fellowship (2017), and Faculty of Arts Undergraduate Society Teaching Award (2016).  More recently, she was awarded the 2021-2022 Canadian Federation of University Women (CFUW) Linda Souter Humanities Award and a Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship.

Her academic service includes membership on the Board of Directors for Students for Consent Culture Canada (2021-2023), Co-organizing Gender and the Academy in Crisis (2021), logistical team member of Critical Conversations on Reproductive Health/Care: Past, Present, and Future (2021), Graduate Representative to the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine (CSHM, 2016-2020), member of CSHM’s Prize Nomination Committee (2021), and Co-creator of IPLAI’s Reading Group “On the Beauty of Feminist Rage” (2018).  In addition, Vincenza has participated in over 20 national and international conferences hosted by the Canadian Association of African Studies (CAAS), South African Historical Association (SAHA), and the International Workshop on “Valuations of Life” in Sweden.

Beyond the academy, Vincenza has engaged in direct-action community-based organizing against sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) across five countries and is a member of Women Also Know History and Informed Opinions.  She is Italian-Canadian and currently resides on the unceded territory of the Paskestikweya people in Baltimore, Maryland.