Our Featured Fellow for October 2026 is Annika Doneghy, a sixth-year PhD Candidate studying Medical Anthropology at Case Western Reserve University. Annika earned her Master of Public Health concentrated in Health Policy & Management at Case Western and her Master of Arts in Applied Anthropology at the University of Kentucky. A proud Buckeye and Ohio native, Annika completed her Bachelor of Science in Anthropological Sciences at The Ohio State University.

Annika’s dissertation explores the intersection of disability and disaster in Eastern North Carolina. Her work is rooted in anthropological literature on disability and disaster and builds on the concepts of slow violence, slow emergencies, chronic disaster syndrome, and chronic living. She explores how people with disabilities (PWDs) deal with the ongoing struggle of day-to-day survival while simultaneously thinking about the threat of natural hazards. Through ethnography, Annika privileges the lived experiences of PWDs, using their disability and disaster narratives to explore the subjectivity and complexity of “disability” and “disaster” definitions. She hopes her research can contribute to a more inclusive and diverse understanding of disaster and emergency management and more equitable conditions for PWDs before, during, and after all types of disasters.

Annika’s broader research interests include disability justice, health equity, and social vulnerability. She is passionate about disability advocacy and working with multiply marginalized populations. Annika is influenced by her own lived experience and proximity to disability; she has family members with disabilities and sees firsthand how disability acceptance is needed in today’s world. Annika is also very passionate about anthropology. She took her first anthropology class in high school and has been hooked ever since! Her anthropology education motivates her to learn about the diversity of the human experience and fuels her passion for addressing structural inequities.

Annika joined the Bill Anderson Fund in the 2021-2022 cohort. She has served the BAF Student Council as Secretary and Writing Committee Chair. In 2023, she was a Summer Scholar with the Coastal Hazards, Economic Prosperity and Resilience (CHEER) Hub, where she learned about disaster research at the University of Delaware and conducted her own research in Eastern North Carolina. This experience helped Annika complete her Master’s Practicum and Capstone projects and laid the foundation for her dissertation fieldwork.

In 2024, Annika was the co-recipient of the Disability and Disasters Award at the Natural Hazards Workshop. Annika earned a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant in Cultural Anthropology from the National Science Foundation. She is a member of the American Anthropological Association and the Association of Black Anthropologists (ABA). She received a Presidential Service Award from the ABA for her work as co-editor of ABA’s section in Anthropology News.

Annika has officially reached ABD (all but dissertation) status and plans to graduate in Spring 2027. Although writing the dissertation is keeping her busy, she enjoys watching series on various platforms when she has free time. She recently started reading the books that many of her favorite series are based on, and she is eager to add to her reading list. Annika also enjoys spending time with her family, visiting new places, and all things fashion.