Katherine Weatherford Darling, Ph.D.

Katherine (Kate) Weatherford Darling, PhD is an award-winning health scientist working across the boundaries of medical sociology, science and technology studies, public health and bioethics. Within the fields of public health and medical sociology, her scholarship uses interdisciplinary methods and community-engaged approaches to understand how social and structural factors impact the health of communities across Maine. She works closely with community-based collaborators on the design and evaluation of innovative population health interventions to address the root causes of rural health inequities. Within the fields bioethics and science and technology studies, Dr. Weatherford Darling regularly collaborates with scientists and clinicians to anticipate and address ethical issues and equity concerns within health science. She applies qualitative, historical and ethnographic methods to show how social and economic values are implicated the design of health research and healthcare systems. In the classroom, Professor Weatherford Darling uses experiential and project-based learning to empower students to apply sociological and clinical knowledge to real-life contexts. She teaches courses in research methods, evidence-based practice and population health. Outside the classroom, she mentors undergraduate and graduate students in independent and collaborative research projects.

Education
Sociology PhD, University of California, San Francisco (2016)
Molecular Environmental Biology B.S., University of California, Berkeley (2007)

Affiliations
Associate Graduate Faculty, University of Maine Graduate School
Affiliate, University of Maine Institute of Medicine
Affiliate Faculty, University of Maine Graduate School of Biomedical Science & Engineering
Visiting Scientist, MaineHealth Institute of Research, Center for Interdisciplinary & Public Health Research

Awards
Maine Community Health Worker Initiative CHW Ally of the Year (2025)
Maine Campus Compact Donald Harward Faculty Award for Service-Learning Excellence (2022)

Selected Publications
Murray, A., Browe, D., Darling, K. W., & Reardon, J. (2024). Cells and the city: The rise and fall of urban biopolitics in San Francisco, 1970-2020. Social studies of science, 54(6), 805–835. https://doi.org/10.1177/03063127241261376
Johnson, T., Darling, K.W., Kantor, D., Spiller, J., Jones, O., Kunz, L., Casimir, T., Dowley, A., Kurtz, G., Sachs, L., Silka, L., McGreavy, B. 2023 “Understanding Occupational Injury and Substance Use Issues among Workers in the Shellfish and Lobster Industries” Maine Policy Review, 32:2, 155-164, Special Issue on Our Shared Ocean https://doi.org/10.53558/HMLG6818
Darling, K. W., Kohut, M., Leeds, S., Anderson, E. C., Han, P. K. J. (2022). “Doing Good in U.S. Cancer Genomics?” Valuation practices across the boundaries of research and care in rural community oncology. New genetics and society, 41(3), 254–283. https://doi.org/10.1080/14636778.2022.2091532
Darling, K. W., Ackerman, S. L., Hiatt, R. H., Lee, S. S., & Shim, J. K. (2016). Enacting the molecular imperative: How gene-environment interaction research links bodies and environments in the post-genomic age. Social science & medicine (1982), 155, 51–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.03.007
[PubMed Link]
Darling, K. W., Boyce, A. M., Cho, M. K., Sankar, P. L. (2015). “What is the FDA Going to Think”: Negotiating Values through Reflective and Strategic Category Work in Microbiome Science. Science, technology & human values, 40(1), 71–95. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43671220
[PubMed Link]