Broadly, I am interested in the connections between biomedical practice and cultural norms concerning bodies, genders, and sexualities. My research sits at the intersections of critical medical anthropology, queer theory, and science & technology studies.

 

LGBTQ+ people's needs and desires are centered across my research projects. My PhD dissertation work, based on 12 months of ethnograhpic fieldwork in an anal cancer prevention clinic in Chicago, developed a queer theory of care to challenge heteronormative logics subtly undergirding medical care and anthropological scholarship on care. That project put Mary Douglas' classic anthropological theories of dirt/pollution and taboo into conversation with more recent work from queer and trans theory, especially concerning issues of embodiment, heteronormativity, and humor. My earlier Master's Thesis work examined the experiences of queer medical students as they were socialized into medical professionalism and developed a heteronormative medical gaze.

 

At the UofM, I have worked with fellow anthropologist Dr. Lindsey Feldman on a project examining sexual health education among people in re-entry after or diversion from incarceration. That project, funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation and a UofM College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Research Grant, involved collaboration with a local non-profit, The Haven, for whom we did program evaluations and needs asssessments as well as collected data on the meanings of care and the LGBTQ+-affirming approach their sexual health education program took.

 

I am currently developing two projects. First, I am developing an applied ethnographic field school in collaboration with my colleague Dr. Jill Fleuriet at the University of Texas at San Antonio, to begin in the summer of 2025. The field school will center on arts, health, and community, with the goal teacingh students engaged/applied community-based research methods through partnerships with local arts organizations in Memphis and San Antonio. The second project will examine the impacts of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in the US on the wellbeing of queer and trans people, with special emphasize on the ways LGBTQ+ people develop resilience and community in the face of such necropolitical attacks.