ABOUT

I am a medical anthropologist and an Assistant Professor in the Department of African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Previously, I was a Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Davis. I received my PhD from the joint Medical Anthropology program at University of California, San Francisco/UC Berkeley, with a designated emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality.

My scholarship has a strong interdisciplinary approach to issues of aesthetics, affect, race, gender, body knowledge and modification, and social justice. In my research, I focus on the politics of reproduction, reproductive and sexual health, and health inequities in both global and national contexts. I situate my work at the intersection of medical anthropology, public health, black feminism, and science, technology, and society studies. I am currently working on a book manuscript about my research on voluntary tubal ligations in Brazil and other article manuscripts. I am co-Founder and co-Director of The Collaboratory for Black Feminist Health & Healing with my colleague and friend Dr. Adeola Oni-Orisan.

I incorporate the arts into my scholarship, as a tool for dissemination, methodology, and critical public engagement. I am currently editing my theatrical piece, "Securing Ties," which was a Semifinalist in the 2018 Bay Area Playwrights Festival. This builds on my experience developing theatrical material and performing in a UCB Black Theater Workshop production titled, "At Buffalo" in 2011.  I assisted in data collection and as a capoeira consultant and performer for a theatrical piece about the Freddy Gray murder in Baltimore, written by Greg Pierotti. I have been a collaborator with Brazilian choreographer Isaura Oliveira as dance and capoeira performer since 2014 with the Teatro Brasileiro de Dança: The Bahia in Oakland Collective stage productions. I was a Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) Equity Fellow (2016-2017).

Find more about me as a birth worker here and here.

Please find my CV here.