Nadia Gaber, PhD

Nadia Gaber, PhD received her PhD from the joint program in medical anthropology from UCSF and UC Berkeley, and is obtaining her MD at UCSF with support from the National Institutes of Health and Medical Scientist Training Program. Her research on the politics of urban health and safety in the U.S. considers how the social and material legacies of industrial capitalism flow between body and environment. Her current book project based on her dissertation, "Life After   Water: Detroit, Flint and the Postindustrial Politics of Health," examines water as a social force through which contemporary biopolitics of race, economy and environment are being reworked. It combines critical theory and ethnography with community-led participatory research to look specifically at governance debates over contaminants such as lead and PFAS in drinking water, advocates' struggles to make the harms of water poverty institutionally legible, and broader claims to water as an urban commons in racially-segregated urban space.