Alicia Suarez

DePauw's Director of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Alicia Suarez is Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program. She received her PhD in Sociology from Indiana University in 2006. She teaches a variety of courses including: Contemporary Society, Culture, Social Structure and HIV/AIDS in the United States, Introduction to Women’s Studies, Medical Sociology, Women, Health and Social Control, Girls, Women, Deviance and Social Control, Sexuality, Culture and Power, Social Theory and Senior Seminar.

Her qualitative research incorporates medical sociology, sociology of deviance and criminology, sociology of birth and women’s, gender and sexuality studies. Her dissertation research focused on people with hepatitis C virus, the most common blood borne pathogen in the United States. Her findings revealed racial differences in the knowledge people have about their disease, patterns of disclosure and experiences with stigmatization. This research has been published in Substance Use and Misuse, Research in the Sociology of Health Care, Journal of Health Psychology and Agenda for Social Justice: Solutions 2008. This line of research and her commitment to social justice has also led to her involvement in the National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable as a steering committee member and to be chosen as the President of the Board of Directors for a new harm reduction organization the Indiana Recovery Alliance, in Bloomington, Indiana.

More recently, she studied midwives working in “prohibition” states whereby their work is punishable by misdemeanor or felony charges. Midwives used of a variety of discursive techniques and coping measures to make sense of their illegal yet deeply valued careers.  As a result of her participation in the midwifery community, she was an invited expert witness in 2013 in the Indiana House and Senate Health Committees when a midwifery legislation bill was under review. The bill was subsequently passed making the practice of midwifery legal in the state of Indiana. An article from this research is forthcoming in Symbolic Interaction.  

While on sabbatical in 2015-2016, she started a new project focusing on women who are incarcerated at the Indiana Women’s Prison. A surprising amount of women arrive in prison pregnant and give birth while incarcerated. Some of the women are allowed to keep their babies in the Wee One’s Nursery, one of the few prison nursery programs in the country. She anticipates being involved in policy discussions regarding their experiences. This research is supported by the John R. Ridpath Faculty Fellowship.