Rachel's Introduction

Hi class,

I worked as a peer writing tutor as an undergrad at a small liberal arts college in Hartford, CT and then as a transfer at a medium-small public college in Providence, RI, and it was the best job I ever had. I'm thrilled to meet a new writing center and its inhabitants!

As you might guess, I'm a born and raised New Englander, a wicked great region. Originally from Lil' Rhody, I moved to Iowa City last year with my partner for my MA/PhD in sociocultural (medical) anthropology after three years living in a co-op house in Boston and working in health services research at that city's veterans' medical center. This summer I confirmed my field site: Anchorage, Alaska. My research uses a transnational feminist lens to explore how the many, diverse women veterans living in Anchorage make spaces for care (broadly defined) outside the clinic but indoors, as temperature extremes from climate change drive wilderness enthusiasts inside. As an anthropologist and storyteller, I love ethnographic academic writing, although I've also challenged myself with formulaic, scientific articles about such opaque topics as survey psychometrics. Cooperative academic writing projects, especially across disciplines, fascinate me.

Last year I was a TA for Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. This semester I'm doing the same for Anthropology of Contemporary World Problems.

Outside of academia, I'm a would-be fiction and creative nonfiction writer. I also love letter writing and, on the flip side, epistolary novels. In my spare time I rarely hold down a hobby but have been most consistent about reading (short stories, novels, and creative nonfiction about life science, mental health, and medicine), scrapbooking, thrift shopping, and showering affection on Spock, our almost-two-year-old rescue corgi-Jack Russell mix. I've also been lucky to road trip around Iowa and the Midwest in search of diners and Atlas Obscura sites. We're in a completely undersold, quirky region.

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