Mairead Sullivan

Professor of Women's and Gender Studies Loyola Marymount University

Los Angeles CA

Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts

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Loyola Marymount University
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Biography

Mairead Sullivan is Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Director of the Core Curriculum at Loyola Marymount University.

Dr. Sullivan is the author of the Lammy-nominated, award-winning book Lesbian Death: Desire and Danger between Feminist and Queer (University of Minnesota Press, 2022).

Sullivan serves as Principal Investigator of the Mellon Foundation–funded project Habitable Worlds: A Disability, Ethics, and AI Think Tank and directs the Viral Imaginaries Lab at Loyola Marymount University. Current work includes a book-length project on the cultural history of herpes.

Before joining LMU, Sullivan spent several years in LGBT and feminist public health, including roles at the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center (BARCC), Fenway Community Health (now Fenway Health), and the former Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health, collaborating with the Women’s Wellbeing Studies in the early years of The Fenway Institute.

Sullivan earned a PhD in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Emory University, an MSW from Boston University, and a BA in Religious Studies with a concentration in Women’s Studies from the College of the Holy Cross.

Sullivan’s research grows out of dual training as a social and behavioral health researcher (MSW in Macro Social Work with an emphasis on community health) and as a scholar of cultural studies, specifically gender and sexuality studies. The work is situated squarely within feminist and queer cultural studies and the emerging subfield of critical health studies. A through-line question is: How did HIV change X? The first book asked, How did HIV change lesbian politics? The next book asks how HIV changed sexual public health.

Education

Emory University

Ph.D.

Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Boston University

M.S.W.

2007

College of the Holy Cross

B.A.

2003

Social

Accomplishments

Outstanding Book of the Year 2023

Winner – Outstanding Book Award – Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender

Lambda Literary Awards - Nominee

2023-06-09

Shortlist – Lammy Award for LGBTQ+ Studies – Lambda Literary

LMU Ascending Scholar Award 2020

2020-05-01

The award is presented based on the scholarship, creative activity, and/or extramural funding of the faculty member while on the faculty of Loyola Marymount University. Scholarly work completed when the nominee was not on the LMU faculty is not formallyconsidered. Theworkhascontributedtoorinfluencedthefaculty member’sfieldofwork. Theworkhasgarneredexternalrecognitionsuchas honors, awards, or funding.

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Research Grants

Habitable Worlds: A Disability, Ethics, and AI Think Tank

Mellon Foundation

Our project addresses the ethical and social justice implications of AI technologies through the lens
of Disability Studies, which critically examines societal norms that define certain attributes as
disabilities, emphasizing accessibility and equity over medicalized “cures.” his three-year
initiative at Loyola Marymount University (LMU will bring together scholars, technologists, and
disability rights advocates to explore these critical questions. The project will award nine faculty
fellowships, develop nine community-based learning courses, and convene three annual
symposia, each focusing on themes like educational technology or privacy concerns related to
assistive technologies.

Advancing Digital Health Humanities

National Endowment for the Humanities/UC San Francisco

"The ADHHI intends to facilitate new insights into historical health data. Through the Institute’s programming, a select group of researchers will learn and apply methods that provide a humanistic context to understanding institutional, personal, and community responses to health matters. This approach includes examining the social, cultural, political, and economic impacts on individual and public health." - NEH.gov

Knowledge of AIDS Research Network

National Science Foundation

Knowledge of AIDS is an NSF Funded Research Community Development (RCD) project that seeks to form scholarly community for social scientific, humanistic, and socio-technical researchers of HIV/AIDS broadly situated within the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS).

Courses

WGST 1000: Introduction to Gender Studies

FYS 1000: Sex, Science, and Society

WGST 2200: Women's Health, Bodies, and Sexualities