The Perils of a Politics of Neutrality

Jess Dillard-Wright, PhD, MA, RN, CNM (she/they), lives, works, and plays in Western Massachusetts. She/they are a white, fat, genderqueer, queer, and disabled associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Elaine Marieb College of Nursing.  She/they serve as the developmental associate editor of Witness, supporting newer authors respond to peer reviews. 

Dillard-Wright is an affiliate of the University of Massachusetts Institute for Applied Life Sciences (IALS) Center for Personalized Health Monitoring, co-leading the ethics arm of a collaborative research initiative, Health Tech for the People. She/they are also a 2023 Public Interest Technology (PIT@UMass) fellow, working with a team of transdisciplinary collaborators to explore communicating complex ideas, the use of black-boxed technologies in and as healthcare, and new material/care ethics in accountable and community-focused ways, particularly focused on reproductive health and death care. Dillard-Wright was the 2021–22 fellow for the University of California Irvine Center for Nursing Philosophy. She/they also serve on the American Nurses Association Ethics Advisory Board.

Dillard-Wright collaborates with individuals across the country and around the world to first imagine and then build worlds that are just, equitable, and sustainable. Examples of this work include Nursing Mutual Aid, the Call to Action for Health + Liberation alternative Nurses Week actions, and ongoing work with the Compost Collaborative. More about Dillard-Wright’s visions for a collective future can be found in Nursing a Radical Imagination: Moving from Theory and History to Action and Alternate Futures, an anthology she/they co-edited, published by Routledge.