College Overview
* (COPH C Overview faculty)
Richard Powis, PhD
Assistant Professor, Maternal and Child Health
Faculty Affiliation, Women's and Gender Studies
Contact Info
- Office: LRC 219
- Academic Email: richardpowis@usf.edu
- View My C.V. | View My Website
Education
- BA, Anthropology, Cleveland State University, 2013
- MA, Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis, 2016
- Graduate Certificate, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Washington University in St. Louis, 2020
- PhD, Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis, 2020
- Postdoctoral Fellowship, Maternal and Child Health, University of South Florida, 2022
Discipline
Critical Medical Anthropology
Specialization
- Reproductive Justice
- Political Economy of Health
- Gender Studies (masculinities)
- Maternal Support (father involvement and doula services)
- Social Theory (critical theory, feminist theory)
- Qualitative Research Design and Ethics (ethnography, rapid qualitative research, cultural domain analysis, community-based participatory research, participatory visual research)
Biography
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.