UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Felicia Henry, assistant professor of sociology at American University, will give the talk, "I Knew It Was COVID, I Knew I Was on Probation: Black Women Navigating Community Supervision During COVID-19," at the Department of Geography's spring 2025 Coffee Hour lecture series. Her talk will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 14, in 112 Walker Building on the University Park campus and via Zoom.
Henry’s research examines the challenges individuals on probation or parole face during disasters. She will discuss how Black women under community supervision navigated legal obligations alongside health and safety concerns during the pandemic. Based on qualitative interviews and arts-based activism, her findings show that supervision intensified the physical, emotional and mental effects of COVID-19, restricting their ability to make decisions for their well-being.
Henry is an artivist-scholar whose research examines race, gender, class, carceral studies, disasters and social vulnerability. Her work has been published in the journals Corrections: Policy, Practice, and Research, Critical Criminology, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency and Environmental Justice, among others. She is the founder of “Behind the Walls, Between the Lines”, a movement focused on raising awareness of racial inequities in the U.S. criminal legal system.
Henry's talk is part of the spring 2025 Coffee Hour seminar series hosted by Penn State’s Department of Geography. For more information and to access the Zoom link, visit the Coffee Hour event webpage.