Community Health Literacies | Science, Technology, and Medicine | Platform and Internet Studies
Hello there! My name is Wilfredo Flores, but you can say Wil if that's easier for you. The mural shown here is "La Feria," located at the Mercado in San Antonio, TX, which is my hometown, and it was painted by Jessie Treviño, a prominent artist in SA. I have this mural here—I took this photo during a recent birthday trip to my hometown—because it reminds of community and home, as well as the importance of localizing research as a scholar. With that said, read on to learn a little bit more about me!
A Bit About Me
Currently, I’m a fourth-year PhD candidate at Michigan State University in the Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures program. In the Fall 2020 semester, I am finalizing the Results section and remainder of my dissertation, tentatively titled "OK Sexual Health Twitter": Toward an Online Community Health Literacy of Sex, and you can read more about it on my Research page. In my studies and research, I specialize in cultural rhetorics, and I am particularly interested in digital rhetoric and sexual health communication. My pedagogy also draws on cultural rhetorics, and I am particularly interested in land-based and multimodal design and using these approaches to help students think through the rhetorical situations they might find themselves in university and beyond. As a graduate instructor in the First-Year Writing Program at MSU, I teach WRA 101, our first-year writing course, with an inquiry- and research-based focus, adapting assignments and materials to student interests through popular culture. We have a lot of fun! You can read more about my teaching on my Teaching Philosophy page.
Outside of my academic and professional work, I think a lot about bringing the university beyond the walls of the campus into local community. As an officer and now president of the Michigan Indígena / Chicanx Community Alliance, I have worked to bring together my university's mission to the very real need for culturally relevant programming and activism, working closely with Casa de Rosado, a Lansing-based Latinx art gallery and community space. I also take this approach as a founding member of and organizer in Queering Medicine, a grassroots coalition comprising MSU students and community organizers working to improve queer health in the Lansing, MI, area.
When I'm not doing any of the above things, you might find me at the gym, on a trail somewhere (though, as a South Texan, the cold in Michigan gets me down), reading some choice queer and/or science-fiction literature, or playing/streaming video games. If you’d like to learn more about my dissertation and my research, collaborate on a project, or just connect, feel free to email or reach out to me on any of my social media. Unless it’s LinkedIn, you weirdo … unless you want to hire me, you awesome person!
