Nadia is particularly interested in how technology, power, and reproductive justice intersect, and how people can maintain autonomy and self-determination in their reproductive experiences.

Nadia Karizat is a doctoral candidate in information science at the University of Michigan. She has been a member of the U-M community since 2014, when she entered as a freshman, and her PhD will be the fourth degree she has earned at U-M. Previously, she earned her bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in Arab and Muslim American studies, a master’s degree in urban and regional planning, and a second master’s degree in health informatics. Nadia received the prestigious Margaret Mann Award, recognizing her as the top graduate student in her Master of Health Informatics program, and she was selected as a U-M School of Information Science Merit Scholar at the start of her doctoral work.

Nadia’s dissertation, titled A Dissertation on the Labor of Anticipating Reproductive Futurity for Those Experiencing In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), explores the gendered labor of imagining and preparing for reproductive futures through IVF. Using feminist methodologies, Nadia investigates the anticipatory work people perform while navigating IVF, asking questions about what it means to invest in possible futures, even when success is uncertain.

Nadia’s research is informed by feminist science and technology studies, social computing, and her own experiences with IVF. She is particularly interested in how technology, power, and reproductive justice intersect, and how people can maintain autonomy and self-determination in their reproductive experiences. Her previous research examined reproductive privacy in a post-Roe landscape.

Nadia is married to her best friend, Kaan Toy. The couple shares their home with two beloved cats, Yeimy and Mishmish. She sums up her life philosophy in a line from the Khalil Gibran poem, “On Children”: “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.” This quotation reflects her belief that we are all embodiments of life, meant to flow freely rather than be claimed or controlled.

CEW+ is inspired by Nadia’s vision and names her a Gutsy Broad Fellow.