Dr. Elena Kalodner-Martin

I’m thrilled to have an article included in TCSJ's most recent special issue! If you’re interested in vaccination, rhetorical strategies used in public health, or social media communication, give it a read: techcommsocialjustice.org/index.php/tc...

Yes, and aside from the obvious reliance on grifty language and logic, another key issue with Cox’s argument that "using AI is a radical act of feminism" is that it risks placing blame on women for the far-reaching impacts of sexism if they choose not to engage with it, thus making sexism… worse.

The Zucht v. King Supreme Court case ruled that it is not unconstitutional to exclude unvaccinated students from public or private schools. This was in 1922.

Reminder that vaccine mandates are not political but ending them IS. Massachusetts was the first state to require immunizations for school…. for smallpox… in 1855.

Making it harder for people to get vaccinated is unequivocally worse for everyone’s health. A couple things are true: Many providers WILL write prescriptions for them if you’re in a state that needs them. Many conditions and lifestyles ARE included (autoimmune, depression, even inactivity!).

It’s the first day of a new academic year! This semester, I’m teaching a class called Rhetorics of Health, Illness, and Wellness. If you have a resource/artifact that you love showing in class (an article, a clip of a show or movie, a TikTok, a cool data viz, etc.), I’d love to check them out.

it's always a good day to talk about HUMANITIES WORKS

humanitiesworks.org

Unconscionable.

Then we have the audacity to suggest a $5k "baby bonus," as though that even begins to cover the costs associated with insurance, medical care, fertility treatments, childcare... the list goes on.

And $1,000 out of your paycheck ALSO isn't affordable! Linking employment = economic stability clearly isn't true for so many of us and these gaps are made especially apparent when someone is experiencing a gap in their employment, are self-employed, cannot work, etc. We need so much better.

We need to talk about how expensive and precarious it is to be unemployed, even if it is temporary. We need better systems that recognize these gaps and support people through them.

As a chronically ill person who relies on infusions to stay healthy, I cannot opt out of insurance.

That's not the point. Nobody should be spending $1,000 a month for healthcare. Nobody should have to consider opting out. We need universal healthcare.

A conversation that we need to have about the academic job market is what happens financially when people are between positions and how this gap makes systemic failures VERY apparent. Case in point: my COBRA insurance cost is $1,000 a month.

All we need is for those numbers to sustain across a diversity of tactics for an extended amount of time-- strikes! boycotts! slowdowns! leaks! refusals! art shenanigans! more! --

and we will have this in the bag, folks.

We. Can. Do. This.

Thanks to everyone who joined us! For more information about TCSJ, please visit techcommsocialjustice.org. You can also reach out to our editors directly at editors@techcommsocialjustice.org if you're interested in pitching a project, being a reviewer, or with any other questions.

#ATTW25 attendees: come to the TPC Editors' Roundtable today at 4:45pm CST in BCH 125 and on Zoom! I'll be there on behalf of @tcsocialjustice.bsky.social. We look forward to chatting with you about all things submitting, reviewing, and more.

Every flashbang could instead be a meal for a poor kid. Every hotel room for a National Guardsman deployed to fire at our neighbors could house a homeless vet. Every "less-than-lethal" bullet pulled from a journalist's eye could be already needed healthcare for anyone else. All of this is a choice.

Aside from all of the other (more important) considerations, the em dash becoming the hallmark of generative AI-written content has been very troublesome for me, a committed em dash user who is now being forced into an early retirement.

Two grey cats sitting on a wood kitchen island and staring straight ahead. The cats both have green eyes and white patches on their chest. In the background, three albums (Lord Huron, Otis Redding, and The Lumineers) are on the wall, and there is a black coffee machine and grinder in the back on a white counter.

Two cats to the rescue: Berlioz (right) and Toulouse (left)!

Thank you so much!

Thank you!!

I am also delighted to share that I was chosen for the 2025
@kairosrtp.bsky.social Graduate Student and Contingent Faculty Award for Service. I'm so grateful for the mentors and colleagues who model what it means to be a generous scholar and the communities I get to work alongside.

I am so honored to share that I was selected to be the recipient of this year's Hugh Burns Dissertation Award at #CWCon25. Thank you to the selection committee and my dissertation committee for their support of this work. Can't wait to see everyone next year at #CWCon26!

I’ll be talking about healthcare wearables for chronic illness management, the double-edged sword of autonomy, and complicating what it means to be a “good” patient.

Attending #CWcon25? Looking for something to do bright and early tomorrow? I’ll be presenting remotely at 9:00am with @banvillemorgan.bsky.social and @emilygresb.bsky.social on “Politics of Compliance: Redefining Perceived Agency in ‘Wellness.’” We hope to see you there!

Welcome - MIT MEDICAL DEVICE DESIGN Medical Device Design – 2.75, 2.750, 6.4861, 6.4860, HST.552 Each year we bring together clinicians, industry partners and students, faculty and staff to prototype new healthcare technologies that add...

I would be remiss not to mention our project partners and my incredible colleagues in mechanical, electrical, and chemical engineering, who helped to make everything possible. Learn more about everyone's work this semester at meddevdesign.mit.edu! 3/3

My teams improved stopcocks for nurses and anesthetists, reduced harmful ambient noise for NICU patients, made blood-based diagnostics safer and less painful, facilitated processes for drug storage and processing, and more. They prototyped, tested, and validated all semester, and they all WORK! 2/x

A group of students standing in front of a large lecture hall and a projector screen. The projector screen reads: "MIT Medical Device Design, Welcome to Final Presentations, meddevdesign.mit.edu."

As I wrap up my final semester teaching at @mit.edu, I want to shoutout my Medical Device Design students, who just wrapped up their final presentations last night! The creativity and dedication they show through their devices -- each addressing an unmet clinical need -- never fails to impress. 1/x

@banvillemorgan.bsky.social and I wrote all about how graduate students are essential to the trajectory of social justice work in TPC, with suggestions for showing up for and with grad student colleagues better in years to come. We can't wait to share it with you!

It's *almost* here! We are both thrilled to have been included in this fabulous edited collection, which you can preorder here: www.routledge.com/The-Routledg....