October 27, 2016
History faculty member featured on NPR's 'Morning Edition'
Phil Tiemeyer, a first-semester faculty member in the history department, was featured in NPR's article "Researchers Clear 'Patient Zero' From AIDS Origin Story," and Oct. 27 episode of "Morning Edition."
Tiemeyer was interviewed about "Patient Zero," the Air Canada steward who was alleged to have brought AIDS to America, thereby beginning the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s. NPR featured Tiemeyer for his work examining how gay male flight attendants in the U.S. combated sexism and homophobia.
Tiemeyer's scholarship focuses on how gender and sexuality has interacted with other social forces, such as the legal system, workplace management practices, the labor movement and technological innovation.
His first book, "Plane Queer: Labor, Sexuality, and AIDS in the History of Male Flight Attendants," won the 2015 John Boswell Prize for outstanding book in the field of LGBT history, awarded by the American Historical Association's Committee on LGBT History.