About Mikey (She/They)
I am a fat liberationist writer, creator, educator, and doctoral student from the Bronx, New York. As a Doctoral Candidate at the Brown University School of Public Health, I am broadly interested in how racism, anti-Blackness, and anti-fatness shape health care, research, promotion, and training. Alongside a group of incredible fat activists, I am also a cohost of the podcast Unsolicited: Fatties Talk Back, on which we re-answer old advice columns from a ‘fat liberationist’ perspective that realizes the multi-faced, intersectional span of lived fat experiences. You should check out the lead piece I wrote for Pipe Wrench Magazine’s Fat Issue: a critical dive into the true realities of social and medical fatphobia.
I am passionate about using public-facing scholarship in various mediums to make science and research more accessible to those outside of academic institutions, as well as reshape health-related and interventions at multiple levels to make the world safer for fat people of color. I write frequently about fat politics and race/ism in the sciences and culture, often with a particular emphasis on the public health space. My 2020 article “The Unbearable Whiteness and Fatphobia of “Anti-Diet” Dietitians” on Medium has been viewed over 80 thousand times and is regularly used as a reference for the contemporary commodification of the body liberation movement. I am currently cultivating an educational community at Patreon through Fattening, an online space for my work and supporters. I have been quoted for my expertise in various media outlets, including Gizmodo, Washington Post, USA Today, and Popular Science. I’m also invited often to speak at engagements of all scales, from multi-person expert panels at conferences, such as the UK-based Appearance Matters Conference, to more intimate, critical dialogues at university groups and organizations, like FoodShare Toronto and Weight Neutral Dietitians in Canada.
I’ve served as a member of the Future of NAAFA Committee for the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance and was the creator and convener of the Fat Studies Critical Reading Group, a discussion space for those connected to the critical study of fatness and related axes of oppression. I was also an inaugural Junior Fellow with the Centre for Fat Liberation and Scholarship, an independent, non-profit research organization committed to fat community, cutting-edge scholarship, and improving the lives of fat people everywhere. I am currently working on the development of the Break the Scale Community Research Fund, a community-ran organization that will fund research about fatness by fat researchers who actively reject and refute the “obesity”-centric research complex.
I have a BA with honors in English Literature, Language, and Criticism from Hunter College, CUNY, where I was a proud Ronald E. McNair Scholar. I also have a certificate in Public Policy with an emphasis on social welfare policy from the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute.
These are some of the cool things I’ve done lately
(The best way to keep up with what I’m doing is to follow me on social media!)
