Jessica Hardin Headshot

Jessica Hardin

Department Chair

Dean’s Office
College of Liberal Arts
Program Director, Global Futures BS
Director, School of Humanities, Languages, and Social Sciences
Honorable Barber B. Conable Junior. Endowed Chair in Global Futures
jahgss@rit.edu
585-475-5546
Office Hours

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Office Location
EAS-3165

Jessica Hardin

Department Chair

Dean’s Office
College of Liberal Arts
Program Director, Global Futures BS
Director, School of Humanities, Languages, and Social Sciences
Honorable Barber B. Conable Junior. Endowed Chair in Global Futures

Bio

I am a cultural and medical anthropologist who is interested in how the intersection of medicine and religion shapes lived experiences of chronic illness. Focusing on metabolic disorders, my research bridges critical medical anthropology (on nutrition, fat, metabolic disorders) and the anthropology of Christianity (on the body, healing, denomination). As a result, both my research and teaching are committed to illuminating how structural inequalities operate in everyday life. I draw from feminist methodologies in my work and in the classroom to investigate how macro-level change influences everyday life.

My long-term fieldwork, conducted in Samoa from 2011 to 2012, supported by the Wenner Gren Foundation, built on over a year of preliminary research, and language training supported by a Fulbright-Hays grant, in the islands (Samoa and American Samoa) and diaspora (Hawai’i and California). My book project, which highlights several voices including health professionals, pastors and their families, healers, and Pentecostal individuals suffering with metabolic illness, offers a revision to scholarly understandings of the medicalization of food, fat, and fitness from the perspective of Pentecostal Christians in Samoa. I explore how they translate health risks associated with metabolic disorders into moral risks associated with living a good religious life.

I received my PhD in Anthropology from Brandeis University in 2014, and now I am an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Rochester Institute of Technology.

jahgss@rit.edu
585-475-5546
Personal Links
Personal Website
Curriculum Vitae
Areas of Expertise
Food studies
Critical nutrition
Gender
Feminist theory
Christianity
Religion
Diabetes
Obesity
Fatness
Pacific Islands
Oceania
Global health
Medicine
Public health
Biomedicine
Science and technology studies
Health

Select Scholarship

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

2021    SturtzSreetharan, Cindi, Alexandra Brewis, Jessica Hardin, Sarah Trainer and Amber Wutich. Fat in Four Cultures: A Global Ethnography of Weight in Samoa, Paraguay, Japan and the US. “Teaching Culture” series. Toronto, CA: University of Toronto Press. 

2019    Faith and the Pursuit of Health: Cardiometabolic Disorders in Samoa. “Health, Inequality, and Social Justice” series. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.


2025    Hardin, Jessica and Emily Mendenhall, eds. Savoring Care: Flourishing with Diabetes Across Cultures. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.

Forthcoming   Stack, Kaitlin Whitney, Kristoffer Whitney, Katie Healey and Jessica Hardin, *Anna Carter, *Lee Smith and *Angeline Hamele. “Design, Disability, and Critical Pedagogy in STS” for the special issue, “STS as Critical Pedagogy,” Science, Technology and Human Values. Online first.

2025    Hardin, Jessica, Saunima'a Ma Fulu-Aiolupotea, Tauaitala Lees, Uila Laifa Lima, Ramona Boodoosingh, Falelua Maua, Tausala Aiavao & *Sophia Williams. “Diabetes care in Samoa: Prevention as not-enough-care and the knowledge gaps it produces.” Global Public Health 20(1): 2482768.

2025    Hardin, Jessica, *Anna Carter, *Lee Smith, *Pema Lama, *Anna Pasquantonio, *Makenna Hakim. “Perpetuating Ableism in Engineering Education: The Role of User Abstraction and Expertise Hierarchies in the Design Process.” Anthropology and Education Quarterly 56(1): e12531.

2024    Negrón, R., A. Wutich, H.R. Bernard, A. Brewis, A. Ruth, K. Mayfour, B. Piperata, M. Beresford, C. SturtzSreetharan, P. Mahdavi, J. Hardin, R. Zarger, K. Harper, J. Holland Jones, C.C. Gravlee, B. Brayboy. “Ethnographic Methods Training Norms and Practices and the Future of American Anthropology.” American Anthropologist 126(3): 458-469.

2023    Hardin, Jessica, Dion Enari, Tarryn Phillips, Tausala Aiavao, Ramona Boodoosingh, Saunima'a Ma Fulu Aiolupotea, Pakilau Manase Lua, Tauaitala Lees, Uila Laifa Lima, Sala Maatasesa Samuelu Matthes, Falelua Maua, Mike Poltorak, Amerita Ravuvu, John Taylor, Seini Taufa, Gade Waqa. “Developing Trust in Collaborative Research: Utilizing Indigenous Pacific Methodologies to create dialogue within research teams.” Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health 35(8): 529-531.

2023      Hardin, Jessica. “The Knowing Body: Moving Materialities in Pentecostal Women’s Health Mentorship in Samoa.” American Anthropologist 125(2): 239-251.

2023    Hardin, Jessica, Abril Saldaña-Tejeda, Alyshia Gálvez, Emily Yates-Doerr, Hanna Garth, Maggie Dickinson, Megan Carney, and Natali Valdez. “Short Take: Duo-ethnographic Methods: A Feminist Take on Collaborative Research.” Field Methods 35(4): 409-413.

 

Currently Teaching

ANTH-205
Global Disability Futures
3 Credits
This course explores Disability Studies in global context, centering perspectives of disabled people, scholars, designers, and activists worldwide. Taking a decolonial approach, we examine how disability is constructed differently across global settings, situating disability politics, identity, and design alongside critical perspectives on ableism. Integrating social scientific and humanistic approaches, we consider disability as a relational experience across diverse locations, including Russia, Japan, Australia, Turkey, Uganda, China, and the United States. Through futures thinking, we critique ableist assumptions embedded in technoscience, envision inclusive alternatives, and engage with crip temporalities to challenge normative ideas of progress. Drawing on ethnography, creative writing, critical theory, historical materials, films, and other media, we develop ethical frameworks for reimagining care and accessibility beyond the pathologizing practices of medical care and global public health.
ANTH-244
Designing For Humans: Disability, Accessibility and Anthropology
3 Credits
How do we imagine the people that we design for? How do social differences around race, gender and class impact how we design for others? How is design a cultural process? How can ethnography make for better design? This course introduces the fundamentals of the field of design anthropology with specific attention dedicated to disability studies and accessibility. The course explores how designers—from industrial designers, game designers to biomedical engineers—can use research-based practices to design better, reflecting the RIT mission to “leverage the power of technology, the arts, and design for the greater good.” We will begin by orienting ourselves to design thinking, exploring key conceptual frameworks from feminist scholarship, science and technology studies, disability studies and approaches to the social aspects of technical thinking. We will then explore different design domains, including access technology, global disability movements, universal design and UX design. Throughout the term we will learn about how ethnographic methods can create human-centered design by starting with lived experiences, exploring power relations and ultimately learning about the perspectives of those whom we design for.
ANTH-246
Gender and Health
3 Credits
This course examines connections between gender and health that are both conceptual and empirical. Students will explore the causes of gender-based differences in health outcomes through case studies of sexual and reproductive rights, HIV/AIDS epidemics and violence. Students will also examine global gender and health trends. The course concludes with an examination of gender inequity in health care and policy implications of these inequities.
ANTH-501
Senior Research Project
3 Credits
Students will write a library-based research paper or research proposal, bringing to bear the knowledge, methodological skills, and theoretical perspectives accumulated during the prior years of study.
INGS-101
Global Futures
3 Credits
How can we make a better future? Can we achieve a sustainable future? Global Futures is a field of study that aims to answer these questions through an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the structural, cultural and historical circumstances that we find ourselves in today. We explore shared global trends, discourses and institutions that shape life chances for people around the world. We explore what it means to anticipate different futures through a series of case studies that probe real-world issues around technology, health, sustainability, political systems, and inequality. We will examine the future as both a culturally constructed idea and a space for speculating and planning for new sustainable and equitable futures. We explore strategies for understanding how to understand global trends and anticipate possible futures through the lens of history, science and technology studies, sociology, anthropology, economics, and politics.
INGS-205
Global Disability Futures
3 Credits
This course explores Disability Studies in global context, centering perspectives of disabled people, scholars, designers, and activists worldwide. Taking a decolonial approach, we examine how disability is constructed differently across global settings, situating disability politics, identity, and design alongside critical perspectives on ableism. Integrating social scientific and humanistic approaches, we consider disability as a relational experience across diverse locations, including Russia, Japan, Australia, Turkey, Uganda, China, and the United States. Through futures thinking, we critique ableist assumptions embedded in technoscience, envision inclusive alternatives, and engage with crip temporalities to challenge normative ideas of progress. Drawing on ethnography, creative writing, critical theory, historical materials, films, and other media, we develop ethical frameworks for reimagining care and accessibility beyond the pathologizing practices of medical care and global public health.
INGS-300
Futures By Design: Methods for Change
3 Credits
How do we make the future we want? What ethical considerations guide our predictions and interventions? This course explores interdisciplinary methods for anticipating, analyzing, and shaping potential futures, with an emphasis on the ethical stakes in addressing global challenges. Students will gain practical skills and develop ethical frameworks essential for conducting rigorous, impactful futures research. Combining industry-standard techniques with critical, activist-oriented approaches, the course equips students to foster just and sustainable futures. It critically examines historical, social, cultural, economic, and political dynamics alongside applied techniques like trend analysis, scenario planning, and human-centered design. Real-world challenges in technology, environment, health, and geopolitics are central, encouraging students to evaluate the ethical implications of these methods, their assumptions, and their potential outcomes. By interrogating the limitations and possibilities of different approaches, students will learn to navigate the complex moral terrain of futures work and select tools that align with principles of equity, sustainability, and justice.
SOCI-246
Gender and Health
3 Credits
This course examines connections between gender and health that are both conceptual and empirical. Students will explore the causes of gender-based differences in health outcomes through case studies of sexual and reproductive rights, HIV/AIDS epidemics and violence. Students will also examine global gender and health trends. The course concludes with an examination of gender inequity in health care and policy implications of these inequities.

In the News

  • October 2, 2025

    program director jessica hardin in the shed

    New Global Futures Interdisciplinary Degree Equips Grads with Toolbox for Lifelong Success

    Flash forward 50 years, and what will it take for our workforce, our communities, or our societies to thrive? While none of us has a magic crystal ball, the new Global Futures undergraduate degree program developed by the RIT College of Liberal Arts aims to equip grads with the mindset, tools, and skills to anticipate and envision a pathway for future flourishing.

  • May 17, 2023

    college student sitting in a chair with an open book.

    Graduate Sophia Williams wins Fulbright award to pursue graduate education in the UK

    The earliest written record of hearing loss is believed to date from 1550 BC in ancient Egypt, and written evidence for early sign language and changing attitudes toward deaf individuals comes from Plato in 350 BC—but, according to Sophia Williams ’23, there isn’t much that reflects the significance of these findings in archaeological scholarship. Williams received a Fulbright U.S. Student Award to fund her graduate education at University of York so she can help fill this gap of knowledge.

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