Society for Disability Studies

Based in Chicago, IL Celestine Willis is the Director of training for the Center for Capacity Building on Minorities with Disabilities Research in the Department of Disability and Human Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is working with the Center’s Director to increase understanding of cultural competence and to develop models and self-assessment instruments measuring cultural competence.

Celestine’s primary focus is conducting research on issues of diversity and cultural competence, exploring how race, disability, and discrimination intersect.

Dr. Gerber is an assistant professor of Anthropology at Montclair State University in New Jersey, where she teaches courses in Medical Anthropology, the Anthropology of Food & Nutrition, and Multicultural America. Her academic work focuses on the relationship between culture and the body, with particular attention to the cultural construction of blindness. Read more