Bri Matusovsky

Research Interests: Disability Studies, Disability Activism, Animal Rights, Animal Welfare, Biopower, Zoonoses, Systems of Oppression, Queer Feminist Approaches to Anthropology, Systemic Violence, Collective Liberation, Scientific Research, Clinical Trials, Bioethics, United States, Romania, Ukraine, Russia

About: 

My proposed doctoral research will critically examine the role of non-human animals and people with disabilities as subjects for clinical testing in the pipeline of clinical research. I am especially interested in the search for treatments and cures for Alzheimer’s disease. While many people are aware that non-human animals are used as research subjects, fewer realize that people with disabilities, such as dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, are also a common subject of clinical trials. The field of Alzheimer’s research requires research subjects with disabilities to participate, making it uniquely suited for study regarding the problems of inclusion and exclusion based on disability status, while also offering insight about how research-as-usual gets done in the biomedical world. This research, studying the relationship between humans with disabilities and non-human animals as research subjects in clinical trials, will use critical disability studies to offer a novel understanding of practices of care, and of inclusion/exclusion of research subjects, in clinical trials.