Lucas Richert
Position title: Professor in the History of Pharmacy
Email: lucas.richert@wisc.edu
Website: Lucas Richert's website
Phone: 608-890-3676
Address:
2513 Rennebohm Hall
Lucas Richert is a historian of medicine and pharmacy, who focuses on legal and illegal drugs, drug science and technology, alternative therapies, and mental health.
His books to date have centered on the pharmaceutical industry, regulation, and the Food and Drug Administration (A Prescription for Scandal); the boundaries that separates all manner of legitimate and illegitimate drugs (see Strange Trips), such as LSD, heroin, and amphetamines; radical mental health and social/professional movements (Break On Through) in the United States; and more specifically cannabis as an intoxicant and therapeutic substance across the planet (Cannabis: Global Histories). These publications all emphasize the evolving nature of health knowledges and logics over time.
Richert has studied and worked in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Between 2006 and 2018, he resided in Saskatoon, Edinburgh, London, and Glasgow, moving slowly from graduate school to postdoctoral fellow to the academic precariat and then to the professoriate. In 2019, Richert took up the George Urdang Chair in the History of Pharmacy within the UW-Madison School of Pharmacy and he is housed within the Social and Administrative Sciences Division and mostly teaches within the School of Pharmacy. He is also a proud affiliate faculty member with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of History and the Department of Medical History & Bioethics (MHB). He regularly contributes to HSMT planning and activities.
Beyond developing academic publications and working with the UW-Madison community, Richert has enjoyed making his research available to different types of audiences. He has provided commentary for, and has been featured in/on, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the Daily Mail, Haaretz, New York Times, Psychology Today, Slate, Vice News Tonight, Women’s Health, Washington Post, and Yahoo News, among other outlets. In Wisconsin, he has worked with Milwaukee Magazine, Wisconsin Public Radio, and the Wisconsin Badger-Herald.