FANNIE GASTON-JOHANSSON PROFESSORS

Angie M. Bautista-Chavez (Ph.D., Harvard, Government) is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. As a scholar of American politics, she examines the politics of migration, borders, bureaucracy, race, and citizenship. She is interested in the dynamic interplay between states and racialized migrants – at one level, how Latinx immigrants are regulated by and contend with the American state, and at another level, how the United States has expanded its regulatory reach beyond its borders. In her book project, Exporting Borders, she traces the policy choices and bargains between the United States and Mexico, two asymmetrically positioned states, to explain the making of current and still unfolding externalization and containment regimes. Her collaborative research about the Latino organizational terrain provides new entry points into the study of American politics and collective action by centering the civic lives of Latinos and Latino immigrants across U.S. political environments. Dr. Bautista-Chavez’s research has been supported by fellowships and grants from the Russell Sage Foundation, J.P. Morgan Chase Foundation, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy, Immigration Initiative at Harvard, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, Ford Foundation Fellowship, and the APSA Minority Fellows Program. Following in the tradition of programs like the Ralph Bunche Summer Institute,  Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, and the Hispanic Scholarship Consortium, Dr. Bautista-Chavez is committed to creating more inclusive systems of knowledge production via her research, teaching, and mentorship

Amanda M. Brown is the Fannie Gaston-Johansson Associate Professor in the Department of Neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She completed a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry at the University of California Riverside and obtained a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine where she identified novel mycobacterial protein secretion pathways. She transitioned to the field of HIV pathogenesis through a postdoctoral fellowship at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York City. There she developed innovative tools to investigate HIV-human macrophage biology and viral persistence at the single-cell level. Today, her lab uses the latest innovations in humanized mice, cellular reprogramming, and single-cell technologies to uncover the cellular and molecular basis of pathologic neuroinflammation.

Maia Gil’Adí is Fannie Gaston-Johansson Assistant Professor of Latinx Studies and affiliated faculty in the Program in Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies (LACLxS). Her first book, Doom Patterns: Latinx Speculations and the Aesthetics of Violence is forthcoming with Duke University Press. It examines how portrayals of destruction paradoxically foreground pleasure in humor, narrative beauty, and the grotesque and argues that through literary devices called “doom patterns” (devices such as thematic repetition, non-linear narration, character fragmentation, and unresolved plots), readers are consistently returned to instances of destruction and historical violence. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Latino Studies, ASAP/Journal, MELUS, Studies in American Fiction, Journal of Intercultural Studies, and edited volumes with Palgrave McMillan and Cambridge University Press.

In service to the profession, Gil’Adí is the 2nd Vice President of the Motherboard for the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present (ASAP), was a member of the founding executive committee for the Latina and Latino Literature forum of the Modern Language Association, has served as co-chair of the Latinx section of the Latin American Studies Association, and serves on the editorial board of Label Me Latina/o and Palgrave’s SFF: A New Canon series. She is also the recipient of a six-month Career Enhancement Fellowship from the Institute for Citizens and Scholars. Her research in speculative fiction extends to the digital stage, where she is the creator and curator of The Zombie Archive. This is an archival resource for lovers of the zombie figure as well as zombie scholars, in which they can find various sources that center around how the zombie functions in the cultural imaginary as a source of anxiety and fascination. A resource for literature, film, art, cultural events, and scholarly sources surrounding the zombie in all its manifestations.

Jennifer Richards is the Fannie Gaston-Johansson Assistant Professor in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She obtained both her MPH in Maternal and Child Health and PhD in Health Behavior Health Promotion from the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health at the University of Arizona. Jennifer is Ásh’hi (Salt Clan) born for the Oglala Lakota Oyate. Her maternal grandfather is Taos Pueblo and her paternal grandfather is Oglala Lakota. She joined the Center for Indigenous Health in 2013 in Tuba City, AZ on the Navajo Nation. With over 15 years of public health experience in Southwest and Northern Plains tribes, her research focuses on reducing American Indian (AI) health inequities through family and child health (FCH) approaches and Indigenous research methodologies. Since 2013, Jennifer has led various FCH initiatives including: early childhood home visiting, diabetes prevention, teen pregnancy prevention, adolescent health promotion, and fatherhood empowerment. Her research interests also include the role of Indigenous doulas in promoting maternal mental health and improving birth outcomes in rural AI communities.