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faculty
Kristen McHenry, PhD she/her/hers
Assistant Professor
Political Science
Director
Health & Society
Contact
508-910-9054
kmchenry@umassd.edu
Liberal Arts 312
Contact
508-910-9054
kmchenry@umassd.edu
Liberal Arts 312
Education
| 2013 | UMass Amherst | PhD |
Teaching
- Women's Health
- Environmental Health
- Health & Society
Teaching
Programs
Programs
Teaching
Courses
Work experience at an elective level supervised for academic credit by a faculty member in an appropriate academic fieldd. Conditions and hours to be arranged. Graded CR/NC. For specific procedures and regulations, see secion of catalog on Other Learning Experiences.
Investigates aspect of human health and well-being, social and cultural determinants of health, and/or population health disparities. Topic to be determined by instructor.
Semester-long internship in community-based organization that addresses an aspect of human health and well-being. Work is supervised by on-site sponsor as well as instructor. Students gain and reflect on work experience and prepare themselves for next steps in defining and achieving their career goals.
Semester-long internship in community-based organization that addresses an aspect of human health and well-being. Work is supervised by on-site sponsor as well as instructor. Students gain and reflect on work experience and prepare themselves for next steps in defining and achieving their career goals.
Investigation of the complex relationship between our environment and women's health and bodies. Theoretical concepts such as environmental justice, environmental racism, cancer prevention, the precautionary principle, and ecological feminism will be examined. Key women's health issues including reproductive health, cancer, asthma and lung disease will be explored in detail. A feminist intersectional analysis of the ways race, class, and gender inform one's experience of environmental harm and degradation will inform our study of women's health issues. In addition we will be exploring various activist and political responses to environmental and women's health issues in the United States.
Topics will be determined by the faculty member and will therefore vary.
Topics will be determined by the faculty member and will therefore vary.
Teaching
Online and Continuing Education Courses
Basic concepts and perspectives in Women's Studies, placing women's experience at the center of interpretation. With focus on women's history and contemporary issues, the course examines women's lives with emphasis on how gender interacts with race, class, sexual orientation, and ethnicity. The central aim is to foster critical reading and thinking about women's lives: how the interlocking systems of oppression, colonialism, racism, sexism, and ethnocentrism shape women's lives; and how women have worked to resist these oppressions. This course satisfies a social science distribution requirement and the general education diversity requirement.
Register for this course.
Study of ecofeminism as systems of oppressions based on race, class, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity that stem from a cultural ideology that enables the oppression of nature. The course explores ecofeminist theories, literature, and practice, including ecofeminist ethics, and the applications of ecofeminism to the lives of individual men and women, as well as cultural institutions and organizations. Cross listed as PHL 307.
Register for this course.
Study of ecofeminism as systems of oppressions based on race, class, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity that stem from a cultural ideology that enables the oppression of nature. The course explores ecofeminist theories, literature, and practice, including ecofeminist ethics, and the applications of ecofeminism to the lives of individual men and women, as well as cultural institutions and organizations. Cross listed as PHL 307.
Register for this course.
Research
Research interests
- Environmental Health
- Feminist Science Studies
- Women's Health
- Cancer
Professor McHenry's research interests center upon American Politics, with a focus on the politics of health and environment. Her work has paid particular attention to the environmental links to cancer, fracking, and women's health advocacy. She is author of the book The Green Solution to Breast Cancer: A Promise of Prevention (Praeger Press), which conducts an analysis of the politics of US healthcare policy and breast cancer activism. Her work has also appeared in Signs: Journal of Women and Culture in Society and Energy Research & Social Science. Her upcoming book Don’t Frack Your Mother: Women’s Health and Activism will be published by the University of Washington Press.