Athena Sofides

Athena Sofides is an environmental health researcher, writer, and legal advocate from Brooklyn, New York. Athena earned a Master’s in Environmental Science from the Yale School of the Environment in 2025, and a BA in Environmental Science and Policy from Smith College in 2019. Athena’s work traces the political, ecological, and cultural histories of medicine and chronic illness in the United States, through mixed-methods research on pharmaceutical development/malfeasance and the embodied experience of chronic illness. Athena organizes at the local and federal levels for free and accessible insulin for all, and has written about health and medicine access in Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience; The Baffler; and Forefront: Health Affairs.

A first-year doctoral student in the joint-degree PhD program in American Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studes, Athena plans to further explore the histories of production, regulation, public conceptualization, and embodiment (materially and affectively) of pharmaceutical hormones in the U.S.