Meet the team behind the lab!
Research Lab Faculty:
Dr. Megan Tracy: Megan Tracy is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at James Madison University. Her current project on gendering the bovine maternal microbiome and its impact on material and social relations of production is animated by several decades of research on food safety governance in China’s dairy domestic industry. She still gets excited visiting cows.
Dr. Rebecca (Becca) Howes-Mischel: is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at James Madison University. As a feminist medical anthropologist she comes to the lab with research interests animated by a deep curiosity in how science, bodies, care, and gender entangle together with power in both metaphoric and material forms. For non-academic microbial fun, she bakes sourdough.
Current Student Research Assistants, AKA “Student Labbers”:
Olivia Leonard: Olivia joined the lab in the spring of 2023 as a senior undergraduate anthropology student, concentrating in cultural anthropology and minoring in computer science. She has interests in the brain-gut connection, and hopes to explore how different foods impact gut microbes and how the gut impacts the brain. Olivia’s ongoing research goal is to find the connection between her two biggest loves: Taylor Swift and the microbiome.
Morgan Peterson: Morgan Peterson is a first year anthropology student, concentrating in cultural anthropology, and with a minor in both linguistics and geography.
Morgan is interested in learning what goes into a gender and science ethnography lab, and is excited to learn more about microbiomes. In her free time she likes to read and write fantasy and Sci-Fi, and is currently working through both Discworld and the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy series if she can ever get ahold of the second book.
Seneca Humphri
es: Seneca joined the lab in the spring of 2024 as a sophomore Anthropology major with minors in Geography and Honors Interdisciplinary Studies. She is interested in how the reproductive ability of women merges with social/cultural identity, specifically when women’s health becomes FemTech. When she is not doing schoolwork, she can be found people watching and drinking kombucha.
Former Labbers:
Cheyenne Sewell (She/Her/Hers): Cheyenne was an undergraduate anthropology student who minored in dance, honors interdisciplinary studies, and humanitarian affairs. Cheyenne joined the lab in the spring semester of 2022 as a research lab assistant. Her interests are in how women’s bodies and ailments are perceived in public medical facilities as gendered bodies as well as how women and various companies advocate for women. Cheyenne wants to help people find and navigate mental health and women’s health and reproduction resources. Cheyenne on occasion would love to quote movies and sing as a pastime in the lab.
Mackenzie Vogan
Rachel Sedehi
Future Labbers:
Coming soon!
Please Contact Us if you are interested in joining the work we do here in lab.
Special Thanks
The Gender & Science Ethnography Lab would like to extend a special thanks to the College of Arts and Letters and the Department of Sociology & Anthropology at James Madison University for their assistance and making our lab what it is today.
Additionally, we would like to shoutout the STS Futures Lab for all their hard work and inspiration they brought to our lab.
Finally, we would like to give a big thank you to our very own Olivia Leonard, who designed and executed this website from its earliest stages to final publication.