My Story.
How we define a social problem makes a huge difference in proposed solutions, for example, framing it as a public health versus a criminal justice issue. My research and teaching focus includes the sociology of gender and sexualities; environment and technology; politics and social movements; law and society; public health and civic engagement; and qualitative and quantitative research methods.
In my doctoral dissertation research, I analyze the ecosexual movement, a growing grassroots transnational social movement that blends sustainability, environmental and climate justice with gender, sexual and reproductive rights activism as its starting point. Rather than creating temporary coalitions among single-issue groups, the ecosexual movement begins at the intersection of multiple struggles. My contribution is analyzing the dynamic processes that make an intersectional movement work, for example, focusing on solidarity politics (i.e., the political links that one chooses to make between and among multiple struggles) rather than simply identity politics (i.e., biological or cultural bases for alliances).
I am working on a follow-up project studying the current U.S. opiate epidemic and record accidental drug overdose / poisoning deaths. Most research has focused on the problem of prescription painkillers, heroin, and now synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. This project focuses on grassroots community-based organizations in rural areas and small towns that are working toward solutions, beginning with the hard-hit Industrial Midwestern region of Northeast Ohio where I grew up.
On a more personal note, I am a proud mom, grandma, and scholar-activist for social justice. I am driven by a unified vision that reflects my own diverse personal experiences; a vision that recognizes and develops the intersections of multiple inequalities and oppressions.
While growing up, I witnessed a toxic waste incinerator that was cited as a danger to public health and the environment permitted to open next to an elementary school and river floodplain in our impoverished community. I remember not understanding how with the massive protests against it, the project was eventually approved anyway. That was my introduction to the intersections of poverty, negative environmental impacts and disproportionate health risks, or environmental injustice. My experience as a teenage mother in this Appalachian county of Ohio began my quest to understand the intersections of gender, sexuality and economic injustices.
The insights I gained through these experiences led me not only to pursue a Ph.D. in sociology, but to work for a program that provided services to disadvantaged teen parents in rural Ohio, conduct interviews with an interdisciplinary team to better understand human impacts on the water supply in Central Florida, engage in nonjudgmental advocacy and outreach for individuals working in adult entertainment and the sex trade in Las Vegas, and help to found an alternative non-profit wellness and recovery organization for youth and their families in Akron, Ohio (that has since expanded to Florida).
In my doctoral dissertation research, I analyze the ecosexual movement, a growing grassroots transnational social movement that blends sustainability, environmental and climate justice with gender, sexual and reproductive rights activism as its starting point. Rather than creating temporary coalitions among single-issue groups, the ecosexual movement begins at the intersection of multiple struggles. My contribution is analyzing the dynamic processes that make an intersectional movement work, for example, focusing on solidarity politics (i.e., the political links that one chooses to make between and among multiple struggles) rather than simply identity politics (i.e., biological or cultural bases for alliances).
I am working on a follow-up project studying the current U.S. opiate epidemic and record accidental drug overdose / poisoning deaths. Most research has focused on the problem of prescription painkillers, heroin, and now synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. This project focuses on grassroots community-based organizations in rural areas and small towns that are working toward solutions, beginning with the hard-hit Industrial Midwestern region of Northeast Ohio where I grew up.
On a more personal note, I am a proud mom, grandma, and scholar-activist for social justice. I am driven by a unified vision that reflects my own diverse personal experiences; a vision that recognizes and develops the intersections of multiple inequalities and oppressions.
While growing up, I witnessed a toxic waste incinerator that was cited as a danger to public health and the environment permitted to open next to an elementary school and river floodplain in our impoverished community. I remember not understanding how with the massive protests against it, the project was eventually approved anyway. That was my introduction to the intersections of poverty, negative environmental impacts and disproportionate health risks, or environmental injustice. My experience as a teenage mother in this Appalachian county of Ohio began my quest to understand the intersections of gender, sexuality and economic injustices.
The insights I gained through these experiences led me not only to pursue a Ph.D. in sociology, but to work for a program that provided services to disadvantaged teen parents in rural Ohio, conduct interviews with an interdisciplinary team to better understand human impacts on the water supply in Central Florida, engage in nonjudgmental advocacy and outreach for individuals working in adult entertainment and the sex trade in Las Vegas, and help to found an alternative non-profit wellness and recovery organization for youth and their families in Akron, Ohio (that has since expanded to Florida).
Photo courtesy of Liam, age 5