Julie Passanante Elman is an associate professor of women’s and gender studies. She is the founding director of the Center for the Humanities and the B.A. program in health humanities (both established in 2023). She also served the College of Arts and Science as a Faculty Fellow of Humanities Initiatives and Inclusive Culture from 2021-2023. Elman is the author of Chronic Youth: Disability, Sexuality, and U.S. Media Cultures of Rehabilitation (NYU Press, 2014), and her articles have appeared in a variety of peer-reviewed journals including Feminist Formations, Feminist Media Studies, New Media and Society, and Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies. She is currently working on a second monograph, Capacity Feminism and Its Discontents. Her teaching excellence and commitment to community-building have been recognized with several university awards including the Provost’s Outstanding Junior Faculty Teaching Award, the Maxine Christopher Shutz Award and Lecture for Distinguished Teaching, and the Lee Henson Memorial Access Mizzou Award.