"I am a medical anthropologist whose work intersects with feminist concerns in multiple ways. Since 2015 I have been specifically focused on the intersection between reproductive health and mental health. I am currently working on a book project, based on research conducted in the Providence area and in China, on postpartum mental illness, which affects some 20% of postpartum women worldwide. I also have for the past four years been running, with my University of Connecticut colleague Sarah Willen, the Pandemic Journaling Project. 

In addition to Women’s History Month, this March also marks the fourth anniversary of the declaration of the Covid-19 pandemic and the shutdown of Brown’s campus in March 2020. This was a time when women – especially working women – experienced disproportionate levels of hardship, as schools and daycare centers shut down while work responsibilities continued. Between May 2020 and May 2022, the Pandemic Journaling Project collected and archived 27,000 journal entries from around 1,800 people worldwide – nearly 80% of whom were women. This entire collection is now archived at the Qualitative Data Repository, where scholars who want to study the lived experience of the pandemic can apply to access it. In 2049 it will become an open public resource. 

As a feminist anthropologist I have found it incredibly meaningful and moving to have a window into the grief, fear, worry, joy, and resilience that women were experiencing during this time. There is so much we can learn from this archive about both women’s strength and about the continuing ways in which social structures – particularly here in the US - are failing them. This Women’s History Month I’ll be reflecting on both the failures and opportunities that the pandemic afforded women, as well as on the growing mental health burden among postpartum women here in Providence."