KINGSTON, R.I. – September 23, 2010 –Duana Fullwiley, assistant professor of African and African American studies and medical anthropology at Harvard University, will speak at the University of Rhode Island Oct. 5. Her talk, Race, Identity, and Medical Genomics in the Obama Age, is part of URI’s ongoing Honors Colloquium, RACE. It is free and open to the public. The talk is also the URI Diversity Week keynote lecture.

Fullwiley will speak at 7 p.m. in Edwards Auditorium, 64 Upper College Road, Kingston. Those unable to attend the lecture can watch it live by going to www.uri.edu.

Fullwiley is an anthropologist of science and medicine whose research explores how personal identity, health status, and molecular genetic findings increasingly intersect. She is completing a book called The Enculturated Gene that draws on ethnographic fieldwork in the United States, France, and Senegal, West Africa on locally varied versions of sickle cell science and disease embodiment. Since 2003, she has also conducted multi-site field research in the U.S. on emergent technologies that measure human genetic diversity among populations and between individuals. As an outgrowth of this research, she has become particularly interested in how scientists promote civic ideas of genetic citizenship, how they enlist participant involvement in specific disease research problems, and how they also contribute to social movements of historical reckoning. In its detail, her work on these societal issues explores how U.S. political concepts of diversity, usually glossed as ‘race’ function in genetic recruitment protocols and study designs for research on complex diseases, “tailored medicine” ancestry tracing and personal genomics.

She holds a National Science Foundation Scholars Award (2009-2011) in NSF’s Science & Society Program to complete research for a second book project called Mark(er)ing Difference: Mapping Race and Human Diversity in American Genome Science.

For a complete, up-to-date schedule of the colloquium, visit www.uri.edu/hc. For further information contact Deborah Gardiner at 401.874.2303 or deg@uri.edu. For information about ways to support the Honors Colloquium, contact Tom Zorabedian at 401.874.2853 or zman@foundation.uri.edu.

Major Sponsors:

Honors Program, Office of the Provost, College of Arts and Sciences, Richard and Jean Harrington and the Harrington School of Communication and Media, Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies, College of Engineering, College of the Environment and Life Sciences, College of Human Science and Services, Office of the President.

Sustaining Sponsors:

The Mark and Donna Ross Honors Colloquium Humanities Endowment, The Thomas Silvia and Shannon Chandley Honors Colloquium Endowment.

Sponsors:

Division of University Advancement, College of Business Administration, College of Pharmacy, Department of Communication Studies, Center for Student Leadership Development, Office of the Dean of Students, Women’s Studies Program, Athletics, Multicultural Center, Office of the Vice President of Administration and Finance, Office of the Vice President of Student Affairs, University College–Phi Eta Sigma, Department of Kinesiology.

Friends:

African and African American Studies Program, Center for the Humanities, Coastal Institute, College of Nursing, Special Programs for Talent Development, Women’s Center.