About
By studying the history of health injustices, I explore how the moral philosophy of public health accommodates and resists systems of domination. My dissertation project traces how American eugenics emerged from forms of moral thought about risk which remain characteristic of Western modernity, and thus still structure public health science and practice today. Beyond merely documenting the well-established fact that eugenics continues to haunt modern science, I aim to advance a sociology of why it does.
Drawing on my epidemiology training, I also study how structural oppression (re)produces contemporary health disparities. I am equally concerned with how health produces the meanings ascribed to bodies and communities. My current projects in this vein concern water governance and ableism. My mixed-methods research is unified by a commitment to critical public health and the cultural sociology of science.
