Biography
Melody Slashinski is an associate professor of instruction in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences in Temple University’s College of Public Health. Prior to this appointment, she was an assistant professor of community health education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences from 2014 to 2019. Dr. Slashinski was a postdoctoral fellow with the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine and earned her doctorate from the University of Texas School of Public Health. She is a qualitative methodologist and has more than two decades of experience leading, collaborating with, or consulting on a range of qualitative research projects, both national and international.
Dr. Slashinski’s work examines how public/community health is shaped by social institutions and systems, particularly within and among marginalized groups. Applying a critical public health perspective, her primary research areas include children’s mental health services utilization; ethical, social, and cultural issues surrounding genomics and microbiomics; and the prison-industrial complex. She uses collaborative and interdisciplinary research methodologies, including narrative, participatory action, and ethnographic approaches, to expose the disjuncture between lived experience and the ideological apparatuses of power that deny lived experience. Her active projects include exploring how the privatization and professionalization of prison adjacent industries perpetuate the cycle of criminalization and incarceration, especially among women; sexual violence against women by law enforcement; how capitalism shapes human microbial biodiversity, health, and illness; and translating complex genomic data for cancer patients whose primary language is not English.
Education
- PhD, Public Health, University of Texas
- MPH, Indiana University
- BA, English Literature, University of South Carolina
- BS, Criminology, University of South Carolina
Research Interests
- Critical public health
- Criminalization and incarceration
- Social/health justice
- Health equity
- Bioethics, genomics and microbiomics
- Qualitative research methods
- Community-based participatory research
Courses Taught
|
Number |
Name |
Level |
|---|---|---|
|
SBS 2201 |
Health Communication |
Undergraduate |
|
SBS 2203 |
AIDS and Society |
Undergraduate |
|
SBS 3496 |
Community-Based Health Program Planning I |
Undergraduate |
|
SBS 3596 |
Community-Based Health Program Planning II |
Undergraduate |
|
SBS 5002 |
Program Planning, Theory, and Practice |
Graduate |
|
SBS 9289 |
MPH Fieldwork I |
Graduate |
|
SBS 9389 |
MPH Fieldwork II |
Graduate |
Selected Publications
-
Malek, J., Pereira, S., Robinson, J.O., Gutierrez, A.M., Slashinski, M.J., Parsons, D.W., Plon, S.E., & McGuire, A.L. (2019). Responsibility, culpability, and parental views on genomic testing for seriously ill children. Genet Med, 21(12), pp. 2791-2797. United States. doi: 10.1038/s41436-019-0570-6
-
Gutierrez, A.M., Statham, E.E., Robinson, J.O., Slashinski, M.J., Scollon, S., Bergstrom, K.L., Street, R.L., Parsons, D.W., Plon, S.E., & McGuire, A.L. (2019). Agents of empathy: How medical interpreters bridge sociocultural gaps in genomic sequencing disclosures with Spanish-speaking families. Patient Educ Couns, 102(5), pp. 895-901. Ireland. doi: 10.1016/j.pec.2018.12.012
-
Lane, W.J., Aguad, M., Smeland-Wagman, R., Vege, S., Mah, H.H., Joseph, A., Blout, C.L., Nguyen, T.T., Lebo, M.S., Sidhu, M., Lomas-Francis, C., Kaufman, R.M., Green, R.C., Westhoff, C.M., & Project, M. (2019). A whole genome approach for discovering the genetic basis of blood group antigens: independent confirmation for P1 and Xga. Transfusion, 59(3), pp. 908-915. United States. doi: 10.1111/trf.15089