Thursday, Feb 29,
5:00 – 6:30 PM,
Buchanan Tower 1112
Dr. Amber Benezra
Associate Professor, School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Stevens Institute of Technology. https://www.stevens.edu/profile/abenezra
Title: The Social Microbiome: What Anthropology, Equity, and Transdisciplinary Collaboration Has To Do With Microbes
Abstract: The trillions of microbes in and on our bodies are determined by not only biology but also our social connections. In this talk, Dr. Benezra describes how as a sociocultural anthropologist she developed a collaborative “anthropology of microbes” with human microbial ecologists to address global health crises across disciplines. Based partly at a preeminent U.S. lab studying the human microbiome, the Center for Genome Sciences at Washington University, and partly at a field site in Bangladesh studying infant malnutrition, she examines how microbes travel between human guts in the “field” and in microbiome laboratories, influencing definitions of health and disease, and how the microbiome can change our views on evolution, agency, and life. Her work follows microbes through various enactments in scientific research—microbes as kin, as data, and as race.
