Faculty Directory

Summary of Expertise

Jaimie Morse, PhD, MPH, is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at University of California, Santa Cruz. She studies knowledge, technology, and policy in biomedicine and public health, with a focus on the interplay of law, health, and human rights in processes of policy change. Her current project examines these dynamics through a focus on the emergence of the sexual assault medical forensic exam (commonly known as the “rape kit”) as a tool of anti-rape activism in emergency medicine in the United States since the 1970s and its adaptation for use with refugees and internally displaced persons. Prior to earning her PhD, she worked for 10 years in the field of public health, domestically and internationally. Her work has been supported by the Social Science Research Council, Newcombe and Woodrow Wilson Fellowships, and the Brocher Foundation.

Research Interests

Legal mobilization in medicine

Global and transnational dimensions of medicine, technology, and law

Science and technology studies

Law and society

Medical sociology

Public policy and inequalities

Qualitative methods

Global health justice

Bioethics

Biography, Education and Training

2018-19. Postdoctoral Associate in Global Health, Yale University

2018. Ph.D. Department of Sociology, Northwestern University

2006. M.P.H. Department of Community Health Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles

1998. B.A. Departments of Political Science and Economics, University of California, Berkeley

Honors, Awards and Grants

2023. Best Scholarly Article Award, ASA Section on Human Rights (for co-authored paper with Nisa Goksel)

2022. David Edge Prize for best peer-reviewed article or book chapter, Society for Social Studies of Science (4S)

2021. UCSC Campus Nominee, Carnegie Fellows Program

2021. UCSC Campus Nominee, Greenwall Faculty Scholars Program in Bioethics

2021. UCSC Hellman Fellowship

2018. Graduate Student Paper Award - Honorable Mention, Sociology of Law Section, American Sociological Association

2017. Junior Fellow, Brocher Foundation, Hermance, Switzerland

2016. Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship

2016. Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Fellowship in Women’s Studies

2014-2016. Presidential Fellowship, Northwestern University Society of Fellows

2014. Visiting Scholar, Sciences Po, Paris, France

2013. Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship, Social Science Research Council

2009-2014. Mellon Foundation Fellowship in Interdisciplinary Science Studies, Northwestern University

1999-2000. Fulbright Fellowship, Malawi, Central Africa

Selected Publications

Refereed Journal Articles

2022. Goksel, Nisa, and Jaimie Morse. "Legal Exhaustion and the Crisis of Human Rights: Tracing Legal Mobilization Against Sexual Violence and Torture of Kurdish Women." Journal of Human Rights. 21(2):174-190. Special Issue: Human Rights on the Edge: The Future of International Human Rights Law.

2021. Morse, Jaimie. "The Geopolitics of 'Rape Kit' Protocols: Historical Problems in Translation as Humanitarian Medicine Meets International Law." Osiris. 36:200-218. Thematic focus on "Therapeutic Properties: Global Medical Cultures, Knowledge, and Law" edited by Helen Tilley.

2019. Morse, Jaimie. "Legal Mobilization in Medicine: Nurses, Rape Kits, and the Emergence of Forensic Nursing in the United States since the 1970s." Social Science & Medicine. 222:323-334.

2014. Morse, Jaimie. "Documenting Mass Rape: Medical Evidence Collection Techniques as Humanitarian Technology." Genocide Studies and Prevention. 8:63-79.  

Book Chapters

2023. Morse, Jaimie. “Metrics, Legibility, and the Logics of Governance in Philanthropy and Humanitarian Aid: A Politics of Knowledge Approach” in Routledge Handbook of Critical Philanthropy and Humanitarianism, eds. Katharyne Mitchell and Polly Pallister-Wilkins, Routledge (p. 225-236).

2016. Heimer, Carol A. and Jaimie Morse. “Colonizing the Clinic: The Adventures of Law in HIV Treatment and Research” in Studying Law Globally: New Legal Realist Perspectives, eds. Heinz Klug and Sally Engle Merry, Cambridge University Press (p. 69-95).

2015. Heimer, Carol A. and Jaimie Morse. “Law, Sociology of” in International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Second Edition, ed. James D. Wright, Elsevier Limited Press (p. 598-603).

2014. Hagan, John and Jaimie Morse. “State Rape and The Crime of Genocide” in The Oxford Handbook on Gender, Sex, and Crime, eds. Rosemary Gartner and Bill McCarthy, Oxford University Press (p. 690-708).

Web-based Publications

2021. Madrigal, Alexis, Jaimie Morse, Aitanna Parker, and Dorothy Santos. “Metrics, Enumeration, and the Politics of Knowledge in Estimating Racial Health Disparities in COVID-19 Pandemic: A Dialogue with Alexis Madrigal, Co-Founder of The Atlantic's COVID Tracking Project." University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI) Foundry.

Teaching Interests

Sociology of Health, Illness, and Biomedicine

Sociology of Knowledge, Technology, and Science

Science and Technology Studies (STS)

Sociology of Law

Law & Society

Gender and Sexuality Studies

Cultural Sociology

Historical Sociology

Global and Transnational Sociology

Global and Community Health

Bioethics