I received my Ms and PhD (2014) from the Department of Science and Technology Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. My research is on the discourse of choice, social institutions and the contested production and practice of knowledges, especially biomedical knowledges.
I am committed to maintaining an emphasis in my research and teaching on the intersection of Marginality, Identity, Transnationalism and Development. My work locates these concepts within the traditions of Science and Technology Studies (STS), Sociocultural Theory and the Social Studies of Medicine and the Health Sciences.
I completed a dissertation entitled “Navigating Care: Medical Tourism, Travel and Choice in the New Global Biomedicine” that draws on field research in Manila, Philippines, Chennai, India, and the United States. This work examines the discourses of choice at work within healthcare decision making, particularly around the formation of “Medical Tourism” as an industry, as a ‘rational’ choice for healthcare seekers, and economic opportunity for tourism.
In Navigating Care I consider how concepts such as “Health” and “Inequality” modify available ideas of choice, and how the practice of medical tourism links US culture and society with increasing global connections within the biological sciences and scientifically informed medicine.
I am from New York City, born into a family of academics, and received my BA from Hampshire College. After college I spent time working in social work education, medical advertising, document processing, and theater. I am an avid doodler, reader, cook, and critical appreciator of popular culture.
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Primary Research Topical Areas:
Medical Tourism, Globalization of Healthcare, Risk/Hope– the management of uncertainty, the social construction of care and choice, Discourse analysis and contemporary social theory.
Other areas of interest:
Classical Social Theory, Theory of practice, Urban Studies (particularly the interplay of expertise on health, poverty and development within the city), Science Fiction Studies and the popularization of science, and Race/ Gender in Biotechnology.