Dissertation topic: 
We are in the midst of a global biodiversity crisis in which half or more of all species could go extinct within decades. My dissertation, The Future is Species-Queer: Gender, Race & Sexuality in the Sciences of the Biodiversity Crisis, examines how biodiversity scientists represent their research on endangered and extinct species. This project chronicles scientific discourses of biodiversity loss in the international scientific community from the passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973, to the coinage of the term “sixth mass extinction” in the early 2000s, to today’s recognition of an extinction crisis that threatens all life. In particular, I examine the scientific rhetoric, metaphor, and images that frame the cultural significance of endangered and extinct species in various cultural, political, and scientific contexts. I examine such primary texts as scientific publications, conference proceedings, and scientists’ personal papers, and conduct oral histories with leading biodiversity scientists. By analyzing the often invisible ways that cultural understandings of gender, race, and sexuality shape how scientists depict and communicate biodiversity loss, I explore how these scientific representations emerge from and transform depictions of the future of the environment in cultural discourses. In interpreting my findings, I adopt an intersectional feminist methodology, which emphasizes issues of power, inequality, and justice. Ultimately, I argue that we need representations of biodiversity that center the perspectives and values of queer, black, migrant, and indigenous peoples—which, though critical to solving the biodiversity crisis, are most often marginalized in scientific discourse.

Research methods:
Cultural studies; discourse analysis; visual & film studies; critical media studies; narrative theory; rhetoric & metaphor; oral histories; archival research; intersectionality.

Areas of interest:
(1) Feminist & Queer Theory: feminist science studies; ecofeminism; women of color feminisms; decolonial feminisms; feminist materialisms; queer ecologies; queer of color critique
(2) Science & Technology Studies: scientific rhetoric & metaphor; feminist epistemology; 20th century history & philosophy of biology
(3) Environmental Humanities: environmental justice; critical animal studies; multispecies studies; posthumanism; border studies; the Anthropocene

Languages:
Spanish