University Writing Program

Rebecca Wilbanks received her PhD from Stanford’s Program in Modern Thought and Literature and was a Hecht-Levi Postdoctoral Fellow in bioethics and the history of medicine at Johns Hopkins before joining the University Writing Program in 2019. Her teaching and research explore the intersection of science and culture, with particular interest in the life sciences, and exchanges between science and literature. She enjoys collaborating with students and colleagues in STEM fields to situate their work in a wider social context.

Recent publications examine the history of genetic insect control, the relationship between science fiction and futurism, and the creation of value in do-it-yourself biology practices. Her current book project is entitled “Life’s Imagined Futures: The Speculative Science and Speculative Fiction of Synthetic Biology.”