About Me
I am an Associate Professor of Political Science and affiliated faculty in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Fordham University. My research and teaching interests are informed by feminist and queer theory and located at the intersection of critical scholarship on gender and sexuality, citizenship and belonging, and democratic backsliding. I am particularly interested in the role of extreme right and Christian nationalism on global gender politics and the erosion of democracy.
My first book, Terms of Exclusion: Rightful Citizenship Claims and the Construction of LGBT Political Identity (Oxford University Press), received the 2023 American Political Science Association Best Book on LGBTQ Politics Award. It is available for purchase at OUP and on Amazon.
I am currently working on my next book project, which examines the politicization of prescription hormones in the US across five cases: hormone-augmented beef and dairy production, social media carnivore influencers, anti-trans healthcare bans, reproductive technologies, and the weight-loss drug Ozempic. Using Foucault's biopolitics as an analytic frame, I argue that the strict regulation (or lack thereof) of hormones in these five cases reveals how gendered, raced, and classed hierarchies of membership are shaped and maintained. These variations in political, social, and economic membership therefore function as indicators of who is considered a “good” citizen and who is conversely excluded from political, social, and economic life.
My award-winning research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such Politics, Groups, and Identities, Politics & Gender, American Politics Research, Laws, Transgender Studies Quarterly, and New Political Science.
I am passionate about identifying ways to share research with people outside academia. You can find my publications that do this in Slate, Teen Vogue, Washington Post, and in the Public Commentary tab above.
I regularly speak with journalists on the politics of sexuality, gender, and race; transgender politics; democratic backsliding; the far right; intersectionality and critical race theory; and political movements.
My first book, Terms of Exclusion: Rightful Citizenship Claims and the Construction of LGBT Political Identity (Oxford University Press), received the 2023 American Political Science Association Best Book on LGBTQ Politics Award. It is available for purchase at OUP and on Amazon.
I am currently working on my next book project, which examines the politicization of prescription hormones in the US across five cases: hormone-augmented beef and dairy production, social media carnivore influencers, anti-trans healthcare bans, reproductive technologies, and the weight-loss drug Ozempic. Using Foucault's biopolitics as an analytic frame, I argue that the strict regulation (or lack thereof) of hormones in these five cases reveals how gendered, raced, and classed hierarchies of membership are shaped and maintained. These variations in political, social, and economic membership therefore function as indicators of who is considered a “good” citizen and who is conversely excluded from political, social, and economic life.
My award-winning research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such Politics, Groups, and Identities, Politics & Gender, American Politics Research, Laws, Transgender Studies Quarterly, and New Political Science.
I am passionate about identifying ways to share research with people outside academia. You can find my publications that do this in Slate, Teen Vogue, Washington Post, and in the Public Commentary tab above.
I regularly speak with journalists on the politics of sexuality, gender, and race; transgender politics; democratic backsliding; the far right; intersectionality and critical race theory; and political movements.