2023-2024 Academic Year 2022-2023 Academic Year
The Gender and Science Ethnography lab is a collaborative research project led by Dr. Megan Tracy and Dr. Rebecca Howes-Mischel, professors of anthropology at JMU that is supported by the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and the College of Arts and letters.
The current focus of this qualitative research lab is the development of a cross-species microbiome and its gendered implications. As anthropologists of science, we study the establishment of (and contestations within) collaborations between universities, national initiatives, and venture capital endeavors. Drawing on research experience focused on reproductive health and dairy science, this project takes the production and proliferation of science, scientific ideas, technologies, and materials of the maternal microbiome as our main research focus.
Our Values
There are two main goals for the the work we do together in the lab
- integrate undergraduate students into the research process as collaborators and empower them to develop practical skills in long-term project planning and research and database management, along with their own research interests in feminist STS.
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facilitate and coordinate our long-term research and scholarship on the gendered effects of microbiome science and industry’s desire to harness its applications
What do we mean by a “gender, science, ethnography” lab?