email: dnavon@ucsd.edu
Assistant Professor Department of Sociology University of California, San Diego Education
2013: PhD in Sociology, Columbia University 2010: MPhil in Sociology, Columbia University 2008: MA in Sociology, Columbia University 2005: MA (undergrad) in Philosophy, University of Edinburgh |
I'm an assistant professor of sociology and science studies at the University of California, San Diego. My teaching and research interests center around the sociology of science and knowledge/STS, comparative-historical sociology, social theory, medical sociology and qualitative research methods. In my forthcoming book, Mobilizing Mutations: Human Genetics in the Age of Patient Advocacy, I examine the way that genetics is reshaping medical classification and giving rise to new ways of understanding human difference. Using comparative-historical methods and fieldwork, I show how the discovery of genetic mutations can lead to the delineation of novel categories of disease and difference - a practice I call 'genomic designation'. What's more, some of these mutations are being mobilized by experts and advocates alike as both new forms of illness and privileged sites of biomedical knowledge production. By tracing the social histories of these mutations, I argue that we are able to grapple with much broader issues at the intersection of the biomedical sciences and society. Mobilizing Mutations will be published in 2019 by University of Chicago Press My research has been published in Theory and Society, the American Journal of Sociology, Social Studies of Science, the Journal of Historical Sociology, Social Science & Medicine, BioSocieties, and the Journal of Genetic Counseling. |