Barbara Ley is an Associate Professor in the Department of Women & Gender Studies and Communication. She received her PhD (History of Consciousness) from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 2003 and joined the University of Delaware faculty in 2011. Much of her research has focused on public engagements with science, technology, and medicine. Her 2009 book, From Pink to Green: Disease Prevention and the Environment Breast Cancer Movement, presents a cultural history of activists’ efforts over the past two decades to push for increased scientific and public attention to environmental causes of breast cancer and disease prevention more generally. She has also published on topics such as online pregnancy and mothering culture, the role of social media in science-based activism, and public understandings of forensic science.

More recently, Ley has shifted her research and teaching to the areas of trauma-informed care, embodied healing, and anti-oppression efforts. She teaches an undergraduate course on mindfulness and self-care for secondary trauma as part of the Department of Women & Gender Studies’ Domestic Violence Prevention Services program; serves as a collaborator on several yoga and mindfulness intervention studies; and is writing a book on the scientific and social intersections of neurobiology, childhood trauma, and societal inequality. As a certified yoga instructor and trauma-informed practitioner, she also teaches yoga and mindfulness to youth, families, and adults in the community.