I am looking at the social-cultural interpretations of the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, made available in the U.S. in 2006. Having followed the vaccine as it moved from pre-licensure status to a widely disseminated and highly promoted new technology, I consider the debates that the vaccine has fostered and how the vaccine sheds light on the complicated intersections of politics, marketing, and medicine. It is impossible to talk about the HPV vaccine without either invoking the debates and practices that preceded it or without considering how it has both disrupted and perpetuated ideas about sexuality and women’s bodies. I argue that belying the classic promise of vaccines that suggests the elimination of risk and ambiguity, the HPV vaccine in fact proliferated the uncertainty that is so intrinsic to women’s health care practice today.
My research builds on my master's training in sexual health behavioral interventions in public health, fieldwork in Baltimore with men and women at a drug and alcohol residential treatment center, and seeks to challenge behavioral intervention frameworks. I am expanding my work to consider how the public understands scientific knowledge and interacts with new technologies.
2007
Wenner-Gren Foundation Social-Cultural Dissertation Fieldwork Grant – “Parental Decision Making, Risk, and New Medical Technology: Mandating the HPV Vaccine.”
National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant – Science and Society – “Parental Decision Making, Risk, and New Medical Technology: Mandating the HPV Vaccine.”
Women, Gender and Sexuality Summer Fellowship -- “Public Representations and Debates around the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccine: Constructing Women at Risk.”
2005
Stulman Jewish Studies Grant, Johns Hopkins University, summer fieldwork research in Morocco.
J. Brien Key Fellowship, Johns Hopkins University, resource grant for summer fieldwork.
Institute for Global Studies Grant, Johns Hopkins University, summer fieldwork research in Morocco.
AIMS Short-term Research Grant, American Institute for Maghrib Studies Fellowship, summer fieldwork research in Morocco.
2004
Women, Gender, and Sexuality Fellowship, Johns Hopkins University.
2002-2004
Maternal Child Health Training Grant, governmental award for public health studies.
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