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Olivia Campbell

Olivia Campbell Profile Photo

Olivia Campbell started writing as a young girl - mysteries fashioned after her beloved Nancy Drew. As a teen, her passion for ballet saw her train to become a professional dancer. A broken foot prompted Campbell's pivot to arts journalism. In college, an unplanned pregnancy, complicated birth, and postpartum depression turned her writing interest from the arts to medicine.

Now, she is a journalist, essayist, and author focusing on the intersections of medicine, women, history, and nature. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, New York Magazine/The Cut, HISTORY, The Washington Post, The Guardian, SELF, Aeon, Scientific American, Smithsonian Magazine, Literary Hub, Atlas Obscura, Good Housekeeping, Catapult, Parents, and Undark, among others.

Campbell is the author of the New York Times Bestseller WOMEN IN WHITE COATS: HOW THE FIRST WOMEN DOCTORS CHANGED THE WORLD OF MEDICINE. It was published in March 2021 by HarperCollins/Park Row Books.

She holds a master’s degree in science writing from Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor's degree in journalism from Virginia Commonwealth University. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers. Campbell was born in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and now lives in the Philadelphia suburbs with her husband, three sons, and two cats.

Dec. 9, 2024

The Women Physicists who Fled Nazi Germany

As the Nazis rose to power in Germany, life became increasingly hostile for women scientists, especially women of Jewish descent, but also those who expressed anti-Nazi sentiments. The sexism in academic that had held them b…