Speakers:
Professor Pischedda’s research focuses on sexual selection and sexual conflict in the common fruit fly, while Professor Jordan-Young looks into biological claims about gender and sexuality by examining how cultural assumptions are embedded in scientific research. The two professors will examine the interdependency between biology and culture that shapes how we understand sexuality and sexual attraction.
Alison Pischedda joined the Barnard faculty in 2017. Her research focuses on sexual selection and sexual conflict using the fruit fly model system, Drosophila melanogaster. Her work takes advantage of the promiscuous mating system, high degree of experimental control and extensive genetic tools available in Drosophila to study interactions between males and females using an integrative approach, drawing from the fields of animal behavior, evolutionary biology and population genetics.
Rebecca Jordan-Young works at the busy intersection of scientific practice and understandings; the material (especially biological) world; and the major axes of social power, especially sex/gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, and economic position. Their main research areas have been social epidemiology research (mostly on HIV), analysis of research and claims related to brain organization theory, work on sex/gender and autism, and discordant scientific models and practices in contemporary research on testosterone.
Free and open to the public. Seating is limited; please arrive early as doors close at 6:30 PM. For questions, please contact: [email protected]. This event is part of From the Faculty Lounge, a series of interdisciplinary conversations.
