Yvan Prkachin, Dr.
- Oberassistent SNF-Projekt
Yvan Prkachin is a historian of science, medicine and technology, specializing in the history of the brain and mind sciences, and the history of modern hospital care.
His first book, Wired Together: The Montreal Neurological Institute and the Origins of Neuroscience (University of Chicago Press, 2026), explains the rise of neuroscience by tracing the history of the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) and the men and women who transformed it into neuroscience’s most innovative and productive research site. Opened by neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield in 1934, the MNI pioneered the surgical treatment of epilepsy and transformed the operating theater into a new kind of scientific laboratory for investigating the functions of the brain. But more than that, the MNI became a crucial site for forming new interdisciplinary practices. These involved wiring together new assemblies of physicians, surgeons, and scientists into a growing network that made possible the emergence of an interdisciplinary science of the brain.
His current research involves the technological history of modern intensive care medicine and is part of the Schweizerischer Nationalfonds (SNF)-funded project “Life Support: Technologies, Institutions and Experiences in the History of Intensive Care Medicine, 1945-2020.”
Yvan completed his PhD in History of Science at Harvard University in 2018. He is originally from British Columbia, Canada.
Research Interests
History of the brain and mind sciences; history of technology and medicine; history of intensive care; Cold War history; modern America and Europe
Select Publications
Peer-Reviewed
Prkachin, Yvan. “The Reign of the Ventilator: Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, COVID-19, and Technological Imperatives in Intensive Care.” Annals of Internal Medicine, May 4, 2021, 1145–50. https://doi.org/10.7326/M21-0270.
Prkachin, Yvan. “‘The Sleeping Beauty of the Brain’: Memory, MIT, Montreal, and the Origins of Neuroscience.” Isis 112, no. 1 (2021): 22–44. https://doi.org/10.1086/713795
Prkachin, Yvan. “Two Solitudes: Wilder Penfield, Ewen Cameron, and the Search for a Better Lobotomy.” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 38, no. 2 (2021): 253–84. https://doi.org/10.3138/cbmh.486-112020
Popular
Prkachin, Yvan. “Blood Cars: Polio, Cyborg Lungs, and the New Medical Device Industry.” E-Flux Architecture, e-flux Architecture – Treatment, 2025. https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/treatment/647320/blood-cars-polio-cyborg-lungs-and-the-new-medical-device-industry
Prkachin, Yvan and Lisa de Bode. “Opinion: Covid-19 and Medicine’s Misguided Romance With Machines.” Undark. https://undark.org/2020/07/09/covid-19-medicine-and-machines/
Education
Ph.D. History of Science, Harvard University, 2018
M.A. History, University of Guelph, 2008
BA Hons. University of Northern British Columbia, 2006