Roberto Padilla II, Assistant Professor, received his doctorate from The Ohio State University in 2009, with a specialization in Modern East Asia. His dissertation, titled: "Science, Nurses, Physicians and Disease: The Role of Medicine in the Construction of a Modern Japanese Identity, 1868-1912," examines the way physicians of Western medicine in late nineteenth century Japan used medicine as a tool to assert a modern identity, while also drawing distinctions between Japanese and their nearby Asian neighbors. Padilla’s current research interests center on how nineteenth century Japanese medical practitioners engaged in experiments using human subjects and created disease categories related to beriberi and cholera to “Orientalize” Chinese and Koreans.
Padilla’s research has received generous support from the US Department of Education in the form of Foreign Area Language Study Grants and a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant. He regularly spends his summers in Tokyo, Japan at Juntendo Medical University where he has a standing appointment as a Visiting Researcher.
Padilla’s teaching interests include Chinese and Japanese history, as well as courses in the history of medicine and world and military history.
Click here for a copy of Professor Padilla's C.V. Contact Information:Office: Tucker Hall 2143
Phone: 419-530-2296
Email: roberto.padilla@utoledo.edu
