Shigehisa Kuriyama

is a Japanologist and historian of medicine. He is the Reischauer Institute Professor of Cultural History at Harvard University.

Early life and education Kuriyama was born in Marugame, Japan. After his family moved for a time to the US, he studied at Phillips Exeter Academy. He earned his Ph.D. at Harvard's Department of the History of Science in 1986 under Barbara Rosenkrantz.

Career Kuriyama has taught at the University of New Hampshire, Emory University (where he was the Chair for its Institute for the Liberal Arts (ILA)) in Atlanta, Georgia, and the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto, Japan.

Kuriyama joined the Harvard faculty as Reischauer Professor in 2005. In 2013 he delivered the Edwin O. Reischauer Lectures, "What Truly Matters."