Terence Keel

Terence Keel is a Professor with split appointments in UCLA's Department of African American Studies and Institute for Society and Genetics. He holds a B.A. from Xavier University of Louisiana, an M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. As Founding Director of the BioCritical Studies Lab, he integrates humanities, data science, and life sciences to study embodiment of discrimination. He also serves as Advisor for Structural Competency at UCLA's Simulation Center.

Research Focus

Keel's work critically examines the historical entanglement of religion, race, and science. His research domains include:

• Genealogy of race concepts in scientific thought
• Christian theology's role in racial science frameworks
• BioCritical approaches to health disparities
• Structural competency in medical education

His scholarship reveals how religious paradigms underpin modern biological conceptions of race.

Publication Trends

Keel's recent publications (2010-2020) demonstrate sustained focus on deconstructing racial science through historical epistemology. Primary themes include religion-science interactions in racial classification systems, critiques of biomedical racism, and Neanderthal genome studies as racial discourse. Methodologically, he bridges critical race theory, anthropology, and science studies.

Awards

• Iris Book Award for Divine Variations (Stanford University Press, 2018)

Laboratory Leadership

Keel founded and directs the BioCritical Studies Lab, an interdisciplinary research hub combining life science methods, data analytics, and humanities scholarship to investigate how social inequality becomes biologically embodied.