Natalie Lira was awarded a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant for the project, Demographic Patterns of Eugenic Sterilization in Three U.S. States: Mixed Methods Investigation of Reproductive Control of the "Unfit."  This NIH R01 grant funds an interdisciplinary project that combines quantitative epidemiological methods with qualitative historical analysis to capture a multiregional and layered understanding of eugenic sterilization in the United States during the 20th century. Investigators from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Iowa, University of Michigan and Rutgers University will work to gather, compare, and analyze sterilization data from California, Iowa, and North Carolina. Ultimately, the dataset will contain information on the sterilization of nearly 30,000 individuals, approximately half of all eugenic sterilizations reported in the United States during the 20th century. The study will provide new scholarly knowledge about the ways genetic determinism resulted in widespread state-mandated deprivation of reproductive capacity. Using the data, the researchers will examine how stereotypes about race and ethnicity, gender, sexual behavior, and disability influenced state interventions into the reproductive lives of tens of thousands of people. Housed under the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications Program in the National Human Genome Research Institute, the project findings will serve as a backdrop to contemporary conversations about the extent to which concepts of normality, disability, and genetic stigmatization can insinuate themselves into the norms of disease prevention and human improvement.