Lisa Weasel, PhD

Professor

 Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies

School of Gender, Race and Nations


Portland State University

Dr. Lisa Weasel is a biologist and interdisciplinary scholar whose work seeks to connect science and social justice. Her scholarship and teaching spans feminist and queer science studies, environmental health, and food, ethics and sustainability. 

Dr. Weasel's scholarly work consists of both theoretical and pedagogical approaches to expanding the epistemological boundaries of STEM to promote greater integration of social justice perspectives within the natural sciences. Additionally, her scholarship seeks to re-evaluate the role that the natural sciences can play in resolving the longstanding tensions between the social and the material within feminist theory.

Dr. Weasel’s research has investigated intersections of gender, race, class and sexuality in cell biology, molecular genetics, and immunology, and she has developed feminist methodologies to inform the practice of the natural sciences through her research on global ethics and equity issues relating to agricultural biotechnology. She is the co-editor of Feminist Science Studies: A New Generation (Routledge 2000) and the author of Food Fray: Inside the Controversy over Genetically Modified Food (Amacom 2009). She is currently developing a feminist Course Based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) laboratory experience for undergraduates focusing on sexual dimorphism, melanin and climate change in Drosophila.

Dr. Weasel received an A.B. magna cum laude in Biology from Harvard College and her PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Cambridge in the UK. She is currently Professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Portland State University in Oregon, where she has previously served as Chair of the Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Assistant Chair of the Department of Biology.