Roberto Padilla II, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Asian history, Meiji Japan, History of Medicine, Military History
Office: University Hall 5320
419.530.4538
Roberto.Padilla@utoledo.edu
Roberto Padilla II, Associate 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.
