Maile Aihua Young is a postdoctoral research
fellow in the Department of Bioethics and Health Humanities. They will receive
a Ph.D. in English with an emphasis in Asian American Studies from the
University of California, Santa Barbara and hold a B.S. in Public Health and
Literature from American University. Their dissertation, “Contagious
Racialization: Asian Americans, Epidemiology, and the Disease Milieu,” examines
how the science of epidemiology tracks, indexes, and maps Asian bodies and
environments so that Asian Americans stand in for the risks of disease. By
putting Asian American cultural production in dialogue with epidemiology, they
demonstrate how race and health are defined in relation to one another, and how
Asian Americans utilize that proximity to imagine a life not at odds with
disease.
Maile is broadly interested in public health
narratives, feminist science and technology studies, and critical ethnic
studies, and welcomes any collaboration around these topics.