Feminism and Science
Bonnie Spanier, Emerita
Associate Professor of Women’s Studies at the University at Albany, SUNY, believes
that feminism and science work together for social change and evidence-based medicine.
Education
Professor Spanier graduated
from Bryn Mawr College in 1967 and received her doctorate from Harvard
University in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics in 1975. In Biology at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, she received grants from the National
Institutes of Health, the American Lung Association, and the Bunting Institute
of Radcliffe College. She received intensive education in the history of science (Harvard) and the science and politics of breast cancer (NBCC Project LEAD).
Career
In 1984, she came to
Women’s Studies at the University of Albany as its director and oversaw its
growth into a full-fledged department offering a master’s degree and doctoral
concentrations.
She taught undergraduate and graduate women’s studies and created courses
on Women, Biology, and Health, fulfilling Natural Science Gen Ed, and Sex/uality, Race, and Class in Science and
Medicine.
Professor Spanier is an internationally
recognized consultant on women's studies and curriculum transformation to improve accuracy of knowledge,
particularly in the natural sciences. In
Spring 2007 she was Maria-Goeppert-Mayer-Professor for International Gender
Research at the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies on Women and Gender (ZFG),
Carl von Ossietzky University in Oldenburg, Germany.
Activism
Her activism in
education, making science more accurate with diversity studies, was rewarded with the University at Albany's Bread and Roses Award
and Albany NOW's Making Waves Award. She
was an Advisory Board member for “Women and Scientific Literacy: Building
Two-Way Streets,” funded by the (U.S.) National Science Foundation via
Association of American Colleges and Universities, 1996-2000.
Her activism around breast
cancer and women’s health started in the late 1990s when she co-founded and co-led the Capital Region Action Against Breast Cancer
(CRAAB!) with Patricia Stocking Brown in Albany, New York. She was a science consultant for CRAAB!’s
“True Burden” Project on environmental factors in breast cancer, funded by the
New York State Department of Health. She
was also a co-founder of a then-unique statewide organization, NYS’s Breast Cancer Network, www.nysbcsen.org.
She contributed to Albany’s CRAAB! Newsletter and Gayle Sulik's international Breast Cancer Consortium, www.Breastcancerconsortium.net.
She contributed to Albany’s CRAAB! Newsletter and Gayle Sulik's international Breast Cancer Consortium, www.Breastcancerconsortium.net.
Bonnie Spanier helped
establish an archive of Siena College biologist and feminist Patricia Stocking
Brown’s papers in the University at Albany’s Library. The Patricia Stocking Brown Feminist Library
Research Award supports graduate and undergraduate research in the library’s archival
resources.
Currently: Healthy Doubt and Breast Cancer
Taking early retirement and moving to Michigan in 2009, Professor Spanier has taught Women, Health, and Environment for Grand Valley State University in Traverse City. She works with the Lown Institute's Right Care Alliance (www.rightcarealliance.org) and is active in the Michigan Breast Cancer Coalition (www.MIBCC.org), both excellent resources. She continues to write on women’s health and evidence-based medicine, as well as the science and politics of breast cancer.
Her guide to evidence-based medicine and breast cancer will be published soon. See her new website www.HealthyDoubt.com for education to empower all of us on better health decisions.
