Claire D. Clark joined the University of Kentucky in January 2015. A native of Jacksonville, Florida, graduate of Vassar College, and a researcher with lived experience of addiction, mental illness, and recovery, Claire earned an interdisciplinary PhD from Emory University’s Graduate Institute of Liberal Arts, where she specialized in the history of addiction treatment in the United States and was supervised by historians Howard I. Kushner and David T. Courtwright. During her graduate training she also earned a dual public health degree which included applied work on drug treatment and harm reduction for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She followed this training with a postdoctoral fellowship in medical humanities at the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics. Her dissertation, which traces the growth of the abstinence-based addiction treatment industry from its roots in a controversial California commune called Synanon, was published by Columbia University Press as a peer-reviewed book, The Recovery Revolution: The Battle Over Addiction Treatment in the United States, in 2017 (excerpts of scholarly reviews below).  In partnership with the University of Kentucky's Special Collections Research Center and the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, she is currently engaged in a public history project which seeks to further document and preserve this complicated history for future scholars. In addition to her historical research, each fall (beginning 2024) Claire will offer a graduate History seminar, BSC 750/HIS 650: History of Medicine Among African Americans: Implications for Health Disparities (see draft syllabus below). With graduate student Clayton Wells (co-advisor: Carrie Oser), she also serves as co-managing editor of Points History, the collaborative website of the Alcohol and Drug History Society.

Grants, Honors, and Awards

Diversity and Inclusion Faculty Pillar Award, UK College of Medicine, 2024

Chellgren Endowed Professor of Undergraduate Teaching Excellence, University of Kentucky, 2023-2026

National Institutes of Health, T32 Training Grant in Drug Abuse Behavior (co-investigator), 2023-2028

Fulbright Institute for Education Incorporated, Fulbright Enrichment Seminar (co-investigator), 2019-2020

Harvard Macy Institute for Educators in the Health Professions (program graduate, 2018; invited teaching faculty, 2019)

National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Seminars Grant, Addiction in American History, 2018 (principal investigator)

National Endowment for the Humanities, Enduring Questions Grant, Morality, Habit, and Health, 2016 (principal investigator)

Paper of the Year Award, American Public Health Association, 2015

Sussman Visiting Scholarship, Hastings Center for Health, Science, and Technology Ethics, 2014

National Institutes of Health Office of History, John Pisano Travel Research Grant, 2013

Basic Preservation Grant, National Film Preservation Foundation for the University of California Los Angeles, 2012

James and Sylvia Thayer Short-term Research Fellowship, University of California Los Angeles Library and Special Collections, 2011

Praise for The Recovery Revolution

Clark writes with an engaging style...this fascinating text should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand the history and social-political context in which SA [substance abuse] treatment evolved.

PsycCritiques, Review Database of the American Psychological Association

[The Recovery Revolution] will remain an invaluable guide. . . . A persuasive account that is in equal measure interesting, provocative, and informative.

Timothy A. Hickman, The American Historical Review

[The Recovery Revolution] is an important contribution to drug histories, and is particularly salient as the treatment of drug addiction is an important factor in current health policy debates.

Mical Raz, Journal of Social History

Scholars and policy makers interested in the history of addiction will find much that is helpful in this concise, well-written, and expertly researched book.

Holly M. Karibo, Journal of American History

Makes a forceful and compelling case for re-evaluating how and why certain truths and treatment logics surrounding addiction have taken root . . . The Recovery Revolution is an informative text that should assume a prominent place in the substance and treatment canon.

Medicine Anthropology Theory

Interviews

New Books in Drugs, Addiction, and Recovery podcast interview with Marshall Poe

Nursing Clio interview with Jacqueline Antonovich

Graduate Students in the College of Arts and Sciences

Cody J. Foster, Department of History (committee member)

Abigail Stephens, Department of History (committee member)

Clayton Wells, Department of Sociology (co-chair)

Syllabus (DRAFT)

BSC 750/HIS 650: History of Medicine Among African Americans: Implications for Health Disparities