Biography
I am a cultural anthropologist working in the fields of medical anthropology, science and technology studies, visual anthropology, and Southeast Asia Studies. My research centers on Cambodia, which I argue is an important place for thinking through postcolonial and Cold War histories in contemporary medical, technological, and visual practices. I theorize these practices as care and repair, which relate to both health care specifically but also a more general understanding of care for the self and collective that involves ongoing repair of infrastructures, relationships, and beings. I have developed my research questions, methods, and commitments in three different directions: medical imaging and visual practices of health care in Phnom Penh; Cambodia as a site of experimental global health sciences; and experiments in collective care in Cambodia and the U.S. My book, Fixing the Image: Ultrasound and the Visuality of Care in Phnom Penh (2022), was published by UW Press.
I teach about the anthropology of technology, multimodal anthropology, Southeast Asia, and sociocultural theory. I am core faculty in the Medical Anthropology & Global Health (MAGH) program, a thriving undergraduate track in the Department of Anthropology, and the Center for Southeast Asia & its Diasporas (CSEAD).
For the 2022-2023 academic year I was on sabbatical, conducting research on the puzzle of antimalarial drug resistance in the Thai-Cambodia borderland, and teaching in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Royal University of Phnom Penh.