The Interdisciplinary Disability, Embodiment, And Sexuality Research lab (or Big “IDEAS” lab for short) is committed to critiquing the violence embedded within and stemming from modern conceptions of disability, gender, sexuality, and health. Specifically, our work draws from inter- and transdisciplinary ontologies, epistemologies, and methodological approaches, attempting to close the gaps that only theoretically exist between feminist philosophy; disability, crip, and mad studies; health psychology; cultural sociology; public health; communication studies; and science and technology studies.
Below you will find the lab’s current research areas and major projects.
In addition to the current work linked above, I also advise on and serve as Co-I and/or MPI on additional projects of pressing social and public health concern, including: examining and evaluating the psychological impact of microaggressions in cancer genetic counselor patient-provider encounters and building culturally-responsive, adaptive provider contracting guidelines (with partners from VCU Pediatrics, Massey Cancer Center, and University of Virginia; American Cancer Society grant under review); studying the relationship between medical mistrust and health hardiness among disabled trans and gender-independent youth; training large language modeling systems on the ethical, legal, and social implications of consent to improve ethical review and participant consenting processes; and other projects led by graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. All of this work is in alignment with the Okanagan Charter’s two main calls to action: embedding whole-human health and wellbeing at the systems-level; and, leading cross-sector, multidisciplinary, and collaborative health promotion actions, that work to optimize and transform the health and social care services ecosystem.