Meet our Jersey Muslim of the Month: Dr. Ayah Nuriddin
by Amatullah Shaw
In February of this year, we had the honor and privilege of hosting Dr. Ayah Nuriddin for our virtual event, COVID and the Black Experience, which was moderated by our Director of Programming, Islam Ahmed, MS. It was important to recognize not only how COVID has impacted marginalized communities, but also how it particularly impacted Black communities here in the US.
Dr. Nuriddin, now based in Princeton, NJ grew up in northern Virginia in a robust and diverse Muslim community, and that she found was “really foundational for having a strong Muslim identity.” She received her undergraduate degree in International Studies at American University, and then a Master of Arts in History and a Master of Library Science at University of Maryland, College Park. In 2021, she finished her PhD in History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University and is now a Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Princeton University. Her work has roots going all the way back to her undergraduate thesis.
She says, “I came across a book called Medical Apartheid while doing research, and read about the different kinds of medical violence that Black people faced and the ways that they resisted. From there, I became really interested in how African Americans used aspects of eugenics and racial science to make arguments for racial equality.”
Dr. Nuriddin’s main research focus is amplifying the voices and experiences of African Americans in the history of medicine and science as well as rethinking historical narratives that are often rooted in white supremacy. She notes, “My work is guided by ‘black power method,’ which calls on scholars to resist dominant narratives about historical sources and center Black knowledge and experiences.”
At COVID and the Black Experience, we discussed just how far back the exploitation of Black Americans go just for the sake of “the greater good.” It’s no secret that the Black communities mistrust in medicine is not unfounded. Dr. Nuriddin adds, “I think [this work] is important because it shows a long history of African Americans resisting racism in its various forms. My work shows that African Americans were not just victims of scientific racism, but rather that they were actively engaging, critiquing, and resisting it and sometimes in ways that we do not anticipate.”
She even notes that while public health experts have just begun labeling racism as a public health issue, African American physicans and scientists have been doing this for almost a century. Her proudest contribution to this work is this syllabus on anti-Black racism in medicine, co-authored with her dear friends and colleagues, historians Antoine Johnson and Elise Mitchell. In this resource, readers can expect an abundance of scholarship on race and racism in medicine that help close the gap between the fields of science and medicine and Black studies.
The lasting effects of long-term scientific malpractices against Black people, at home and abroad, continues to provide just how deeply-rooted racism goes.
If you’re interested in connecting with Dr. Nuriddin, you can reach out to her via email at an4984@princeton.edu or follow her on Twitter at @AyahNerd.