Sabrina Strings, UCI sociology associate professor and Chancellor’s Fellow, specializes in research on race, gender, embodiment, sociology of medicine, and sociology of media. She’s the author of Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia which discusses the stigma of larger – primarily female – body types and how deep racial and religious roots, rather than health concerns, led Western society to favor the lean. She joined the UCI faculty in 2015 following completion of her Ph.D. in sociology at UC San Diego.