Natalie Lira

Natalie Lira serves as Associate Professor in the Department of Latina/Latino Studies, Gender and Women's Studies, and the Center for the Study of Global Gender Equity at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she also holds the position of Associate Chair in Latina/Latino Studies. Her interdisciplinary work bridges multiple academic units to examine critical issues at the intersection of race, reproduction, and disability.

Dr. Lira earned her academic credentials from prestigious institutions, including a Ph.D. in American Culture from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2015), an MA in American Culture from the same institution (2011), and a BA in Latin American and Caribbean Studies from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (2008).

Her research program centers on the politics of reproduction and histories of medicine in the United States, with particular attention to how racial and reproductive justice struggles intersect. Dr. Lira's scholarship combines frameworks from Latinx Studies, Disability Studies, and feminist theory to examine eugenic practices, particularly focusing on Mexican-origin communities' experiences with sterilization and institutionalization in California during the first half of the 20th century. Her work reveals how ideas about race, intelligence, and criminality were deployed to justify reproductive constraint and institutional control.

Analysis of Dr. Lira's publications reveals a consistent scholarly trajectory examining the historical connections between race, disability, and reproductive control in the United States. Her work spans historical analysis of eugenic sterilization programs, particularly their impact on communities of color, with a methodological approach that combines archival research with theoretical frameworks from multiple disciplines. The research demonstrates how medical and public health institutions have historically been sites of racial and gendered violence, while also highlighting acts of resistance by marginalized communities.

• NIH Fellowship (2019)
• Nomination, Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Article Prize (2014)

As co-director of the Sterilization and Social Justice Lab (SSJL), Dr. Lira leads a multi-institutional interdisciplinary research team funded in part by a National Institutes of Health grant. The SSJL employs mixed methods from social sciences, humanities, and public health to explore eugenic sterilization patterns across California, Iowa, North Carolina, Michigan, and Utah. Her scholarly activities include numerous invited presentations on topics including coerced sterilization, Mexican-American struggles for reproductive justice, and multi-media approaches to studying Latinas/os and eugenic sterilization in 20th century California.

Dr. Lira co-directs the Sterilization and Social Justice Lab (SSJL), a significant research initiative that brings together scholars across multiple institutions to investigate the history of eugenic sterilization in the United States. The lab's interdisciplinary approach combines social science methodologies with humanities perspectives and public health frameworks to create a comprehensive understanding of sterilization practices and their lasting impacts on communities.