Nina Francis-Levin

Recently received her PhD from the University of Michigan Joint Program in Social Work and Anthropology, and is doing a postdoctoral fellowship at Michigan Medicine. Through qualitative methods and multimedia ethnography, Nina studies the health and well being of young adults in the family context, particularly around adolescents experiencing cancer and oncofertility. She is particularly interested in young people within families that do not fit common expectations of assumed, heteronormative “American” kinship structures. By taking a queer lens to the topic of all families, Nina explores how protection, commitment, care, love, and intimacy are constructed and maintained beyond assumed models of bio-legal family constellations. She was project manager for research project that explores adolescent and young adult cancer patients’ experience of fertility preservation consultation. Nina was a student coordinator for the Rackham Interdisciplinary Workshop Making Sensory Ethnography, and she is committed to leveraging mediums that interrogate and subvert the dominant formats of social science research. On a day off, Nina’s favorite self-care activity is getting her nails done.