Department of Sociology

Sabrina Strings (UCSD PhD 2012 and Associate Professor at UC Irvine) is the author of an op-ed published in the May 25, 2020 New York Times. Drawing on her 2019 book, Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia, Sabrina questions the scientific, media, and political arguments connecting African Americans, obesity, and morbidity due to Covid-19.

The article is available here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/opinion/coronavirus-race-obesity.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

In an editorial published in the journal Nature, alumna Joan Donovan (PhD 2015, Sociology and Science Studies) shows how misinformation about hydroxychloroquine was spread on social media, and she argues why media companies must flatten the curve of unsubstantiated science.

Donovan is the research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her article can be found at https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01107-z