Emily Smith Beitiks is a Ph.D. candidate in American Studies at theUniversity of Minnesota. She attended the University of California, Davis and received a B.A. in American Studies. Emily's dissertation, "Body Upgrades? Embodying Technoscience while Resisting Cures," looks to integrate Disability Studies and Science and Technology Studies into American Studies. In particular, she questions U.S. hegemonic celebrations of the disabled body being "fixed" by technological interventions in science policy and popular culture, while looking at how people with disabilities understand the body/machine interface in ways that resist a simplified cyborg representation through the disability rights movement and emerging assistive technology-focused communities. She has taught at UMN, UCSC, UCD, and in Ghana with course topics covering social justice, cultural understandings of "the body," and the role of technology in American culture. She now lives in San Francisco and is entering what she hopes will be the final year of her dissertation project.