In this episode of the Matrix podcast, Julia Sizek (a PhD candidate in anthropology at UC Berkeley) interviews Clare Ibarra, a PhD candidate in history at UC Berkeley, and Naomi Schoenfeld, a public health nurse practitioner and recent PhD from the joint UC San Francisco/UC Berkeley medical anthropology program.
Both Ibarra and Schoenfeld study the history and present of socialist science and medicine in Cuba. Ibarra examines the scientific exchange between Cuba and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, whereas Shoenfeld researches the Cuban cancer vaccine and its history.
On the podcast, Sizek, Ibarra, and Schoenfeld discuss the history of science and medicine in Cuba and its relationship to the socialist project, as well as how Cuba has developed vaccines during the current pandemic.
A transcript of this interview is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/science-and-socialism-in-cuba/.