MBE Graduate Mariam Khan wins ASBH Student Paper Award Competition

Mariam Khan, who recently completed the Berman Institute’s Master of Bioethics program, has been named winner of the 2024 American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) Student Paper Award competition for her paper, “’Weigh Over the Anti-Blackness’: How the Harms of Medicalizing Obesity ‘Outweigh’ Potential Benefits.”

Khan is passionate about decolonial research, disability justice advocacy in public policy, and exploring global health issues from a social justice framework. She has remained a dedicated Participatory Action Researcher in her undergraduate research team, SiSTEM (“Sisters Interrogating STEM”), leading many initiatives of the project – including designing Halaqah as a decolonial and decolonizing methodology. She received a B.A. in Spanish Language, Literatures, and Culture from the University of Maryland in College Park, with a Humanities, Health, and Medicine minor in 2023.

Khan joins 2021 PhD Berman Institute graduate Michael DiStefano as a winner of the ASBH Student Paper Award. DiStefano, who won the award in 2018 for his paper “Characterizing ‘civil unrest’ as a public health determinant: Implications for public health research and practice,” is now an assistant professor at the University of Colorado.

The ASBH Student Paper Award recognizes one paper nationwide for writing clarity and quality, development of the argument, integration of the literature, and novelty/insight of the contribution. As part of her award, Khan will present her paper on Friday, Sept. 20, at ASBH’s Annual Meeting.