Mara Santilli

Mara Santilli's picture
MA Student
Email: 
mara.santilli@yale.edu
Research Areas: 
reproductive justice, gender and sexuality, reproductive care access, histories of reproductive medicine and public health

 

Education: B.A. in Communication and Media Studies and Italian Studies, Fordham University (2016) 

Mara Santilli is an M.A. student in the History of Science and Medicine department, and she has also done graduate work in the Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies department at Yale University.  Her research interests include twentieth century U.S. histories of contraceptive coercion, experimentation, and forced sterilization, particularly of Black, Latinx, Indigenous, disabled, and incarcerated people; she situates those histories alongside current media and public health communication around reproductive and sexual health. 

Throughout her career she has also worked as a freelance journalist specializing in reproductive health and its intersection with social issues; her work has been published in magazines including Cosmopolitan, SELF, Shape, Women’s Health, Elle, and Well+Good. She will apply her current research on contraception history and marketing toward a book project coming fall 2027.