Joan H. Robinson JD, PhD

Joan Robinson, JD, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Social Science and Law at City College, CUNY, in the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies. She received her PhD in 2018 from the Department of Sociology at Columbia University, where her dissertation, In Whose Hands: The Pregnancy Test in American Life, received the Robert Merton Award for Best Dissertation. Her current research addresses issues of surveillance and power at the intersection of science and technology studies and gender studies.  Her publications (many peer-reviewed) address gender inequality and human rights.

Her current teaching at City College includes Doing Social Research, which provides an opportunity to undergraduates to conduct social research in their communities, and Who Run the World? Gender Inequalities, Local to Global, which introduces students to various social, cultural, economic, and legal gender inequalities and was inspired by the Beyoncé song of the same title.

Robinson was previously a Postdoctoral Research Scholar at Columbia Law School, under the Eric H. Holder, Jr. Initiative for Civil and Political Rights at Columbia University.  At the Holder Initiative, Robinson developed and oversaw curriculum, programming, and internships to bridge the gap between Columbia's Core Curriculum and students' career goals in public service and justice.  During her tenure, the Holder Initiative provided opportunities to dozens of students to pursue opportunities in a wide variety of public service and justice fields.

In law school, Robinson worked at Legal Momentum (formerly NOW-LDF) and the ACLU Women's Rights Project, where she focused on employment discrimination against women of color, and at the Safe Harbor Project and The Legal Aid Society, where she won immigration relief for victims of domestic violence. Robinson continued on at The Legal Aid Society as a Staff Attorney in both the Bronx Neighborhood Office and the Brooklyn Neighborhood Office, preventing evictions and homelessness of some of the most resilient and resourceful women and families she has ever met.

She is thankful for the privilege to be able to work in the intersection of scholarship, teaching, and the pursuit of justice.