COVIDCalls

EP #382 - 11.23.2021 - New Doctors in the Pandemic

Today I welcome MD/MBA Thomas Irwin to discuss medical education in the time of COVID.

A graduate of the MD/MBA program at the University of Kansas School of Medicine in Kansas City, Tom Irwin worked as an opera singer and bass player for nearly two decades before medical school. Since making a living as a musician requires other work as well, his other employment has included professional sound and musical instrument sales, officiating in minor-league hockey, and producing television news in Louisiana and Tennessee. A native of New Orleans, he has degrees in music from the University of New Orleans and the University of Northern Colorado, and he and his meteorologist wife have two children. He is currently doing a research year with the University of Kansas Cancer Center's Melanoma Project.

 

 

EP #381 - 11.23.2021 - COVID in Japan w/Kyle Cleveland

Today I welcome sociologist Kyle Cleveland from Temple University Japan, co-editor of Legacies of Fukushima: 3.11 in Context.

Kyle Cleveland is Associate Professor of Sociology at Temple University’s Japan Campus (TUJ), where he is Faculty Director of Study Abroad and Honors Programming.   He is the founding director of the university's Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies (ICAS), which organizes cross-disciplinary programming for public lectures and academic symposia, including a series of lectures and symposia related the 3/11 Tohoku disasters.  Since 2011, he has done extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Fukushima, interviewing nuclear refugees, prefectural mayors, military officials, anti-nuclear activists and nuclear industry experts. He is writing a book on the political dimensions of radiation assessment in the Fukushima nuclear crisis, examining how foreign governments in Japan responded to the crisis. He is co-editor (with Scott Knowles and Ryuma Shineha of the book “Legacies of Fukushima: 3/11 in Context,” published by University of Pennsylvania Press (forthcoming in May of 2021). 

EP #380 - 11.22.2021 - Legal Responses to COVID-19

Today I welcome Wendy E. ParMET Parmet, the George J. and Kathleen Waters Matthews Distinguished Professor of Law and Professor of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University—co-editor of Assessing Legal Responses to COVID-19.

Wendy E. Parmet is the George J. and Kathleen Waters Matthews Distinguished Professor of Law and Professor of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University, where she is the faculty director of the Center on Health Policy and Law. Professor Parmet is the author of numerous law review and peer reviewed articles. Her books include The Health of Newcomers: Immigration, Health Policy and the Case for Global Solidarity, co-authored with Patricia Illingworth (2017, NYU Press), Populations, Public Health, and the Law (2009, Georgetown University Press) and the forthcoming Constitutional Contagion, How Constitutional Law is Killing Us. (2023, Cambridge Univ. Press). Professor Parmet is also Associate Editor for Law and Ethics for the American Journal of Public Health.

EP #379 - 11.22.2021 - Pandemic Burnout w/Jenny Pickerill

Today I welcome Jenny Pickerill, Professor of Environmental Geography and Head of the Department of Geography at Sheffield University.

Jenny Pickerill is a Professor of Environmental Geography and Head of Department of Geography at Sheffield University, England. Her research focuses on inspiring grassroots solutions to environmental problems and in hopeful and positive ways in which we can change social practices. She has published 3 books (Cyberprotest; Anti-war Activism; Eco-Homes) and over 30 articles on themes around eco-housing, eco-communities, social justice and environmentalism. She is currently completing a book on Eco-communities: Living Together Differently.

EP #378 - 11.18.2021 - Disability Research in the COVID Era + Montana Update

Today I welcome Meg Traci, Mackenzie Jones and Hana Meshesha to discuss their research on people with disabilities copied during the COVID era. Philippa Clarke, is hoping to join us tonight too.

Mackenzie Jones is the Health Education Specialist for the Montana Disability and Health Program at the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services and the Accessibility liaison for the APHA Disability Section.

Hana Meshesha is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Counseling, University of Montana and the Mentoring co-chair for the APHA Disability Section Mentorship program.

Meg Ann Traci is a senior scientist and research associate professor at the University of Montana Rural Institute for Inclusive Communities with nearly thirty years of experience in the field of disability and health.

Dr. Clarke is a Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan's School of Public Health. She is also a Research Professor at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. Her work examines the social determinants of disability, with a particular focus on the built environment for older adults aging in place.

EP #377 - 11.16.2021 - Pandemic Science and Indigenious Peoples w/Kim Tallbear

Today I welcome Kim Tallbear, author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science.

Kim TallBear is a Professor in the Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta, and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience, and Society. She is a citizen of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate in South Dakota. Dr. TallBear is the author of the book Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science. Building on her research on the role of science in settler colonialism, TallBear also studies the roles of the overlapping ideas of “sexuality” and “nature” in colonization of Indigenous peoples. She is a regular commentator in US, Canadian, and UK media outlets on issues related to Indigenous peoples, science, technology, and Indigenous sexualities. She is a regular panelist on the weekly podcast, Media Indigena. She tweets on these topics and more at @KimTallBear. Her research websites include www.IndigenousSTS.com and www.re-lab.ca. You can also follow her occasional posts on her Substack newsletter, Unsettle: Indigenous affairs, cultural politics & (de)colonization, https://kimtallbear.substack.com. 

EP #376 - 11.15.2021 - Chronic Illness and COVID w/Brianne Benness

Today I welcome Brianne Benness host of the No End in Sight podcast.

Brianne Benness is the host of No End In Sight, a podcast about life with chronic illness, and the creator of #NEISVoid, an active community hashtag for questions and conversations about life with chronic illness across diagnosis and diagnostic status. Brianne is also a co-founder of Stories We Don’t Tell, a candid Toronto storytelling event, podcast and anthology. Brianne holds a post-graduate certificate in Media and Medicine from Harvard Medical School and a Master of Architecture from the University of Michigan. Some of her recent work includes her TEDx talk “Disease Begins Before Diagnosis” and a Spring 2021 short course at Grinnell College “Personal Storytelling for Social Impact.”

EP #375 - 11.10.2021 - 700,000 COVID Memorial Flags w/Suzanne Firstenberg

Today I welcome artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg, creator of the In America: Remember COVID memorial in Washington DC.

Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg is a visual artist who has demonstrated the power of art to touch hundreds of thousands of lives. In the Fall of 2020, images of her In America: How could this happen…art installation graced over six hundred news articles on six continents, making visible the pandemic’s cost in American lives.  Her art created a national space for mourning.

Firstenberg believes art has incredible power to educate, inspire, and change the lens through which viewers understand social issues. Interviews, research, and reading ground her work on topics that include gun violence, Native Americans, homelessness, and political partisanship.  The underlying theme is upholding individual dignity, a value honed through her twenty-five years of hospice volunteering.

She travelled to twenty-four states and interviewed hundreds of people in preparation for her newly completed EMPTY FIX project, a seven-installation art series to decrease societal stigma surrounding drug addiction. She had represented the United States at the Harbin (China) International Ice/Snow Sculpting Competition (2016) and has work accessioned by the Smithsonian.

EP #374 - 11.09.2021 - The History of Infectious Respiratory Diseases

Today I welcome Tom Ewing and Katharine Randall, authors of "How did we get here: what are droplets and aerosols and how far do they go? A historical perspective on the transmission of respiratory infectious diseases.”

Tom Ewing is a professor of history and associate dean at Virginia Tech. His current research projects include studies of influenza pandemics, including the 1889-1892 Russian flu and the 1918-1919 Spanish flu, and a history of Virginia’s first tuberculosis sanatoria, Catawba and Piedmont, in collaboration with Katherine Randall and Kiana Wilkerson. In 2020, he worked with graduate students from Virginia Tech to understand the use of masks during the 1918 pandemic, which resulted in essays published in the Washington Post, Health Affairs blog, Items (SSRC), and Nursing Clio.

Katherine Randall is a visiting lecturer of technical communication at the University of Central Florida. Her most recent research projects include a rhetorical history of the scientific understanding around airborne transmission, a history of Piedmont and Catawba tuberculosis sanatoria, and an exploration of the role of health communication in refugee resettlement in the United States.

EP #373 - 11.08.2021 - Care Work in the Pandemic

Today I welcome Salonee Bhaman, a scholar whose research explores the intersections of care work, welfare policy, and social provision in the United States.

Salonee Bhaman is a PhD candidate in the department of History and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University. Her research explores the intersections of care work, welfare policy, and social provision in the United States. Her dissertation project focuses on questions of political economy, migration, and intimate regulation during the first decades of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States.