Hailee Yoshizaki-Gibbons is an assistant professor in biomedical humanities. She received her Ph.D. in disability studies with a concentration in gender and women’s studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Yoshizaki-Gibbons’s research employs an intersectional lens to examine the ways gender, race, class and immigration status mediate the lives of old and disabled people and those who care for them. As a scholar activist, Yoshizaki-Gibbons advocates for greater inclusion of old and disabled people, particularly those with dementia, in society. Her current project analyzes how temporality influences the care relationships between old women with dementia and the immigrant women of color employed to care for them in dementia units of nursing homes.

Education

• Ph.D., Disability Studies with a Concentration in Gender and Women’s Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago
• M.S., Student Affairs in Higher Education, Miami University
• B.Phil., Interdisciplinary Studies with a Concentration in Gerontology, Psychology, and Family Studies, Miami University

Research Interests

• Disability
• Aging
• Dementia
• Institutionalization and incarceration
• Care work
• Temporality
• Feminist disability studies
• Qualitative Methodology

Publications

• Yoshizaki-Gibbons, H. M. (In Press.) “She’s going to forget everything”: Entanglements of disability and aging in films centered on dementia. The Bloomsbury Handbook to Ageing in Contemporary Literature and Film. Bloomsbury.
• Yoshizaki-Gibbons, H. M. (2021.) Integrating critical disability studies and critical gerontology to explore the complexities of ageing with disabilities. In M. Putnam & C. Bigby (Eds.), Handbook of Aging with Disability. New York, NY: Routledge.
• Yoshizaki-Gibbons, H. M. (2018.) Engaging with aging: The “greying” of critical disability studies. In R. Garland-Thomson, K. Ellis, M. Kent, & R. Robertson (Eds.), Manifestos for the Future of Critical Disability Studies (pp. 179-188). New York, NY: Routledge.
• Yoshizaki-Gibbons, H. M., & O’Leary, M. E. (2018.) Deviant sexuality: The hypersexualization of women with bipolar disorder in film and television. In J. Leeson-Schatz & A. George (Eds.), The Image of Disability: Essays on Media Representations (pp. 93-106). Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
• Yoshizaki-Gibbons, H.M. (2018). Critical disability studies. In T. Heller, S. Parker Harris, C. Gill, & R. P. Gould (Eds.), Disability in American Life: An Encyclopedia of Concepts, Policies, and Controversies (pp. 149-152). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.

Fun Facts

• The last name Yoshizaki is her grandmother’s maiden name, and she added it to her surname in 2017 to honor the Japanese side of her family.
• She is a first-generation college student.
• She is a huge animal lover and have adopted two dogs, Izzie and Ginnie, and two cats, Tommie and Sunny.
• She is excited to be teaching a brand new course at Hiram, The Complexities of Care and Confinement, which examines the lived experiences of disabled and old people receiving care in confined spaces such as nursing homes, psychiatric wards of hospitals and prisons, and institutions for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

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