The Department of Latina/Latino studies is pleased to announce that Professor Nic Flores was recently accepted to participate in three year Knowledge of AIDS (KOA) Research Collaboration Network. The KOA is a Research Community Development project supported by a collaborative grant from the National Science Foundation and Science and Technology Studies Program. The KOA seeks to form scholarly community for social scientific, humanistic, and socio-technical researchers of HIV/AIDS broadly situated within the field of Science and Technology Studies.

The project will include three in-person workshops focused on different themes. Year one, “Archiving of HIV/AIDs,” will focus on the historical, sociocultural, and technological aspects of archiving HIV/AIDS-related materials and the cultural memory of the pandemic. Year two, “Expertise about HIV/AIDS,” will examine the forms of expertise that have emerged in response to the HIV/AIDS crisis, including medical, scientific, political, and community-based expertise. Year three, “Civic Participation in HIV/AIDS,” will examine the role of individuals, communities, and organizations in HIV/AIDS discourse, policy, and activism. 

Professor Flores specializes in public and sexual health, sexuality studies, and comparative ethnic and racial studies with additional interests in science and technology studies. He is particularly eager to participate in the workshops for year two and three which align with his ethnographic research on HIV prevention that explores the impacts of the biomedical intervention known as “PrEP” on Black and Latinx communities in the United States Midwest. With his commitment to exploring the social, biomedical, and political history of HIV/AIDS, joining the project will allow him to share his findings, engage in discussions around expertise in response to the HIV/AIDS crisis, and learn from other scholars who have explored similar intersections.   

Professor Flores’s work has appeared in edited collections and he is currently preparing several articles for publication. He is currently writing a book, "Becoming HIV-Negative" which is under contract with University of Minnesota Press.