Dr. Karen Flynn

Dr. Karen Flynn is the Terrance & Karyn Holm Endowed Professor in the Department of Population Health Nursing Science at the University of Illinois, Chicago, College of Nursing and director of the Midwest Nursing History Research Center. Her research lies at the intersection of Black feminist and diaspora studies; health and care work; nursing history, transnational mobilities with keen attention to race, gender, and equity. Her award-winning book Moving Beyond Borders: Black Canadian and Caribbean women in the African Canadian Diaspora (University of Toronto, 2011) is the first book length manuscript that examines the experiences of Black Canadian and Caribbean nurses and the transnational formation of the occupation. Dr. Flynn is in the process of completing on a second book project tentatively titled, The Black Pacific: The African Diaspora in East Asia that maps the travel itineraries of young Black English as Foreign Language teachers across borders, which will be published by McGill-Queen’s University Press. As a scholar, teacher and public intellectual, Dr. Flynn strives to ensure that her public scholarship is accessible, available, and translatable to broader audiences. She is currently working on several projects, including the histories of Black Canadian midwives, and the gendered and racialized impact of COVID.