My work sheds light on how individuals navigate multiple sites of knowledge, negotiating contradictory ideas about health, citizenship, modernity, and inclusion, especially those shaped by the history of health governance and the rise of scientific medicine. 

In my book,  African American Midwifery in the South: Dialogues of Birth, Race, and Memory (Harvard University Press, 1988)  I describe, through evidence from fieldwork and archival research, nearly four centuries of midwifery care as foundational to the health of rural African American mothers and children in the southern United States. I argue that public health professionals, in alliance with southern obstetric gynecologists and legitimized by the rising influence of eugenic science, criminalized African American midwifery practices. This criminalization disrupted the apprenticeship lineages through which successive generations had learned to provide culturally resonant reproductive care within their communities. The community members’ descriptions of midwifery cosmology and birthing practices—along with their complex, often ambivalent views on whether it was a loss or benefit to be included in or excluded from segregated birthing spaces in hospitals—painted a multifaceted picture of the changing landscape. Their pragmatism regarding the inevitable subordination of intrinsic knowledge or “mother wit” to the technical expertise of biomedicine reflected a nuanced reality that I have worked to convey.

 Anthropology has, to date, barely scratched the surface of the complex dynamics of the higher education academy, often overlooking the ways in which faculty life and careers are shaped by these structures and normative routines. As a result of my international exposure to comparative higher education system in Brazil, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, and across the US, on inter-agency leave from UVA, to work as a Ford Foundation Higher Education Program Officer, I gained a unique understanding of how universities were organized and managed change, particularly around incorporating previously excluded people.

On return to my home institution, I sought to catalyze change that would transform that which may have impeded faculty and the institution itself from achieving their highest ideals. Therefore, my research and knowledge innovation led to the creation of groundbreaking initiatives through community engaged scholarship.

My new research, launched after an NSF conference on failure disclosure I organized in June 2024, explores the growing topic of failure disclosure in science. Recent scholarship suggests that transparency about failure can enhance public trust in STEM and provide valuable lessons to students and early-career professionals, showing that failure need not hinder career advancement. Advocates argue that scientists should avoid internalizing failure and instead use it as a stepping stone, fostering a more open, generative approach. This, they believe, could strengthen scientific communities and promote inclusivity and diversity. Some even suggest that scientists share "failure CVs" to normalize setbacks and cultivate resilience.

However, my research highlights that failure disclosure may not benefit everyone equally. A key focus will be examining how gender impacts access to the privileges of failure transparency. Oral histories from women in STEM show that many find it risky to openly discuss their failures, especially with peers, suggesting that societal and institutional factors influence who feels empowered to disclose failure. I aim to create opportunities for STEM practitioners to build communities and allyship networks where they can openly discuss failure and its meanings in their work. Additionally, I seek to identify institutional models that reward failure as a resource for innovation. Alongside the conference, I’ve organized an international network of failure scholars from the U.K., Poland, Nigeria, and the U.S., all working in critical failure studies.