Research

Intersectionality Matters in Food and Drug Law 

My article, “Intersectionality Matters in Food and Drug Law,” employs the theoretical framework of intersectionality to critique food and drug law and the FDA. This article uses the case study of skin lightening products and calls attention to the issues of gendered racism and systemic colorism in the beauty industry that disproportionately affect Black women and especially darker skin women of color. It connects these systemic issues to the broader public health consequences of skin lightening products and products that are disproportionately marketed to Black women. While arguing for more stringent regulation of these products, it articulates the need to affirm women’s agency and bodily autonomy in the performance of beauty.

Dissertation Research 

My dissertation research examines how institutional and systemic processes impact Black women’s agency as they navigate reproduction and obstetrics. My article in the Michigan Journal of Race and the Law, “Medical Violence, Obstetric Racism, and the Limits of Informed Consent for Black Women,” stems from this research. It sheds light on how medicine subverts Black women’s agency and subjects them to over-medicalization with unnecessary birth interventions. Additional themes from my dissertation include informed refusal and stratified reproduction, which relate to broader discourses on the distinct policing of Black bodies through myriad institutional and historical forces.

Research on Eugenic Marriage Laws (Work in Progress) 

My current work in progress, “Eugenic Marriage Laws and the Politicization of Illness,” analyzes eugenic marriage bans. I examine the politicization of disease and the state’s restriction of rights based on illness.

Root of the Poisonous Tree: Historical and Current Factors Contributing to Mistreatment in Birth in the U.S.A (co-Author)

This chapter was published in Obstetric Violence: Realities and Resistance from Around the World, 2022. (Angela Castañeda, Nicole Hill, and Julie Johnson Searcy, co-editors, Demeter Press). We discuss the mistreatment of pregnant people and the forces that contribute to obstetric violence such as the law’s failure to protect pregnant people’s human rights.

Shorter Work

Racial Inclusivity in COVID-19 Vaccine Trials, September 22, 2020.The Harvard Law School Petrie-Flom Center Bill of Health.