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

Discipline

Critical Medical Anthropology

Specialization

• Reproductive Justice and Health Equity
• 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.