Teaching

Harvey Mudd College

Technology & Human Reproduction

Advances in reproductive technologies are rapidly changing the ways we think about kinship and families, the reproductive process, and the limits of human reproduction. The global reach of the fertility industry has leveraged differences in the policies governing these technologies across the world to develop markets for gametes, surrogates, and experimental procedures. Although these technologies have made fertility and reproduction accessible to new populations, they also raise concerns about the potential consequences they will have on both present and future generations. In this course we will explore the social, cultural, and ethical implications of reproductive technologies, while analyzing these considerations using sociological, bioethical, legal, and reproductive justice frameworks.

We will explore these issues through assigned readings packaged in a variety of formats, including op-ed articles, news coverage, academic journals, book chapters, a monograph, personal narratives, and more. In this course we will discuss ethical concerns from a variety of perspectives and viewpoints, and through the tensions and contradictions inherent in these discussions, develop a keen analytical lens and hone our skills in logical, evidence-based argumentation.

From Hybrid Degeneracy to Hybrid Vigor: Scientific and Popular Perceptions of Racial Mixing

This course will explore the evolution of perceptions of racial mixing in the United States. It will examine the scientific and popular understandings of race that contributed to two contradictory typologies of thinking about multiraciality: notions of hybrid degeneracy and notions of hybrid vigor. The desire to document, classify, and characterize different racial types was rooted in an evolutionary schema that was fundamentally undergirded by assumptions of monoracial boundaries and separations between groups. We will revisit scientific theories of human difference, including the polygenism versus monogenism debates of the nineteenth century; renderings in popular culture of the mixed race experience such as the tragic mulatta trope; collaborations between biologists, geneticists, and social scientists to clarify scientific knowledge on race such as the UNESCO statement; and more contemporary celebratory portrayals of multiraciality. Understanding these shifts and moments will help us trace the framework and context within which perceptions of racial mixing are continually being constructed.

You will be encouraged to cultivate not only an understanding of the progression of thought and perceptions of racial mixing, but also a deeper analysis of how surrounding social and cultural conditions at various historical moments influenced these perceptions. Although this course examines the topic of multiraciality specifically, it will situate multiraciality within the broader racial schema of the United States and will enable you to analyze the construction of race and racial boundaries broadly. We will draw upon primary source materials in addition to secondary sources, interdisciplinary analyses, and works of popular culture.

Courses Taught

Harvey Mudd College
From Hybrid Degeneracy to Hybrid Vigor: Perceptions of Racial Mixing, Spring 2019/Spring 2020
Technology & Human Reproduction, Fall 2018/Fall 2019

Instructor of Record, University of California, Santa Barbara
Special Topics in Methods: Conducting Research Interviews, Summer 2012
Sociology of Girls and Girlhood, Summer 2015

Teaching Assistant, University of California Santa Barbara
Introduction to Sociology, Winter 2011/Fall 2010
Special Topics in Methods: Conducting Research Interviews, Summer 2011
Special Topics in Methods: Critical Ethnography, Summer 2013
Methods of Sociological Research: Surveys, Winter 2013
Sociology of Multiracial Identity in the United States, Spring 2013/Spring 2011

Reader, University of California Santa Barbara
Sociology of Women and Work, Course Reader Fall 2012
Black Studies: Contemporary Black Cinema, Spring 2013

Curriculum Development Experience

Graduate Student Researcher, Undergraduate Program Committee, Department of Sociology, University of California Santa Barbara, 2013
Conducted open-ended survey interviews with all faculty members of Sociology Department regarding the assessment and development of undergraduates’ analytical skills. Results of survey used to advise course offerings, standardize assessment of skills in the department, and were reported to the UCSB Council on Assessment.

Course Development ConsultantScience for Social Justice, College of Biological Sciences, Dr. Rebecca Calisi, University of California Davis, 2017
Advised in the conception and development of new introductory general education course for first year students in the College of Biological Sciences called “Science for Social Justice.”

Committee Service, Johns Hopkins

Structural Competency in Curriculum Working Group, School of Medicine

Curriculum Review, Leader, Inclusion, Diversity, Anti-Racism, and Equity Committee, Berman Institute of Bioethics

Student Success Task Force, Academic Reform sub-committee, JHU Roadmap on Diversity and Inclusion