Giovanni N. Dortch is an Associate Professor of Teaching Sociology.  She earned a Graduate Certificate in Women's Studies at Texas Woman's University. She holds a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies/ Women’s Studies as well as undergraduate degrees in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Memphis. Ms. Dortch has also completed studies internationally, studying in West Africa at the University of Ghana- Legon Campus. Currently, she is a Health Policy Scholar at Meharry Medical College focusing on Health Equity and the Social Determinants of Health. 

​Professor  Dortch combines her work as a sociologist, women's studies scholar and political scientist in the field of Health Policy and the Sociology of Health/Social Public Health. In this capacity, she has been a Reproductive Justice activist and HIV prevention advocate for nearly a decade. She is the writer of an eleven issue comic series focused on HIV prevention and safe and healthy relationships entitled LUNA: Unleashed.

Professor Dortch teaches courses such as Contemporary Social Problems, The Individual and Society, Sociology of Gender, and a general survey course, Introduction to Sociology.

 

She has written policy plans,  lobbied Congress and Tennessee state representatives to pass legislation and policies protecting women's health, is a certified HIV counselor and tester in the State of Tennessee, and facilitates trauma informed trainings to address health disparities among black women.  She has also created culturally competent health literature to facilitate HIV prevention.