Ben Folger is a first-year PhD student studying the history of medicine in the American West. He graduated from OU in 2022, earning his MA with his thesis entitled, ""A great mass of incompetent men": Contested medical frontiers in Oklahoma, 1880-1940" that examined trends in the professionalization of medicine in Oklahoma. Ben looks to continue exploring the relationship between colonial violence and histories of medicine in the American West in his doctoral work.