Dick Powis PhD is an Assistant Professor of Maternal and Child Health in the College of Public Health. Before joining COPH, Dr. Powis completed his PhD in Anthropology and a Graduate Certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, and then postdoctoral training at USF-COPH Center of Excellence in MCH Education, Science, and Practice.
Dr. Powis’ work in Global Maternal and Child Health is about the relationship between public health, neoliberalism, and the family. His dissertation research looked at the prenatal care roles of expectant fathers in Dakar, Senegal and his postdoctoral research was about father education programs in Tampa, Florida.
Dr. Powis and his colleagues have started The Entourage Lab, a horizontally organized research collective conducting a multi-sited project for the study of how kin and communities can provide care to pregnant and postpartum people in order to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality. This includes research on fathers, doulas, and other support persons beyond the normative frame of domestic labor and familial care.