Jessica Lee Mathiason

Jessica Lee Mathiason is an Assistant Research Professor in the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Maryland. Her work bridges feminist science studies, disability justice, and the history of medicine, with a focus on how genetic technologies and media shape understandings of gender, race, and sexuality. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and a B.A. from Northwestern University.

Her research critiques the FemTech industry, tracing its roots to 19th-century pseudoscientific discourses about women’s health. Her current book project From FemCare to FemTech (under contract with University of Washington Press) argues that FemTech perpetuates harmful historical narratives of female bodily failure. She also examines intersections of eugenics, feminist movements, and film history, such as in her analysis of the 1919 film The End of the Road.

• Research Interests: Medical humanities, queer biopolitics, surveillance capitalism, feminist technoscience
• Awards: 2023 AAUW Research Grant for project on postpartum FemTech

Her teaching spans courses like Bodies in Contention and Gender and Science in Media. Ongoing projects include reimagining feminist technologies through participatory design and analyzing the cultural politics of gun violence.