Lunch & Learn – 2019 Archive

Lunch & Learn – 2019 Archive

December 5, 2019

Denying Entry: Immigrant Medical Exams, Testing and Care at Angel Island, California, 1900-1941

A Conversation with Dr. Nayan Shah

Join us for a HEAL Lunch & Learn event, featuring Dr. Nayan Shah. Dr. Shah is Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity and History at USC. His research investigates how transnational migration has shaped state institutions and regulation of health, law, immigration and prisons.  Professor Shah is the author of two award winning books: Contagious Divides: Epidemics and Race in San Francisco’s Chinatown and Stranger Intimacy: Contesting Race, Sexuality and the Law in the North American West.


October 14, 2019

Gene Editing Technology: Promises and Pitfalls

A Conversation with:

Please join us as scholars in biomedicine, ethics, law, and the humanities help us imagine the not-so-distant future.

Paula Cannon, PhD is a USC Distinguished Professor of Molecular Microbiology & Immunology; Associate Director for Transdisciplinary Advocacy and Cross School Championship, USC MESH Academy.

Alex Capron, JD is a USC University Professor, Scott H. Bice Chair in Healthcare Law, Policy and Ethics; Professor of Law and Medicine, Keck School of Medicine; Co-Director, Pacific Center for Health Policy and Ethics.

Claire Nettleton, PhD is a Pomona College Visiting Assistant Professor in Romance Languages and Literature. Editing and contributing to the anthology Viral Culture: How CRISPR Gene Editing and the Microbiome Transform Humanity and the Humanities.


May 2, 2019

That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour

A Conversation with Dr. Sunita Puri

Dr. Sunita Puri is the Medical Director of the Palliative Medicine and Supportive Care Service at the Keck Hospital and Norris Cancer Center of USC, where she also serves as Chair of the Ethics Committee. She is the author of That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour.  Dr. Puri’s debut book has been featured on PBS’ Cristiane Amanpour show and the Larry Mantle show, was named a People Magazine “Book of the Week,” and has received starred reviews from Library Journal, Publisher’s Weekly, and Kirkus, which called it “A profound meditation on a problem many of us will face. Worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal.”


April 17, 2019

Acted Stories: Narrative Medicine, Social Justice and the Clinical Encounter

A Conversation with Dr. Cheryl Mattingly

Join us for a HEAL Lunch and Learn event featuring Cheryl Mattingly, PhD, Professor of Anthropology at USC. She is a medical and psychological anthropologist deeply inspired by phenomenology, the philosophy of ethics, and narrative theory. Professor Mattingly explores the clinical encounter as a cultural border zone: her research has focused on disability, family care and health disparities for minority populations, in particular African Americans. She has authored four books and co-edited three others; her 2014 book, Moral Laboratories:  Family Peril and the Struggle for a Good Life, received the New Millennium Book Prize from the Society for Medical Anthropology.


April 17, 2019

Vaccine Resistance and the Crisis of Expertise: A View from the Social Studies of Risk

A Conversation with Professor Andrew Lakoff

Professor Andrew Lakoff is a Professor of Sociology and Communication at the University of Southern California, and he also serves as Divisional Dean for the Social Sciences.  He is the author of Pharmaceutical Reason: Knowledge and Value in Global Psychiatry, and Unprepared: Global Health in a Time of Emergency.  His current work focuses on how imagined future crises are managed in the present.


April 17, 2019

Finding the Patient Voice in Oncology

Conversations with Professor Peter Kuhn about Cancer Base

Dr. Peter Kuhn is a scientist, educator and entrepreneur with a career long commitment to personalized medicine and individualized patient care, and has focused his recent work on the redesign of cancer care. Dr. Kuhn is the Dean’s Professor of Biological Sciences and Professor of Medicine and Engineering, a founding member of the Michelson Center for Convergent Biosciences at USC and is leading CSI-Cancer at USC. Dr. Kuhn’s strategy is to advance our understanding of the human body to improve the human condition.