Brittany Forniotis

Dr. Forniotis is currently a higher education administrator at Stanford University. Her research considers the architecture of community in the premodern Mediterranean, with special interests in cross-cultural exchange and the history of science. Her dissertation, The Architecture of Healing: Hospitals in the Mediterranean (600-1700), contends that premodern hospitals, as a result of significant cross-cultural exchange, constitute a group in their architectural forms, their support of advancements in medical care, and their facilitation of social bonds within communities. It examines architectural remains and contemporaneous texts to determine trends in hospital construction, and the architectural responses of medieval and early modern communities to the body in need, through an approach informed by Global and Comparative Studies and Anti-Orientalism. Her work received generous support from Duke University's Graduate School and Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.