About

Megan Finch is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Minnesota's College of Liberal Arts, with a focus on American Studies, Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies, and Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender & Sexuality Studies. Her research concentrates on the relationship between Enlightenment and racial slavery era discourses on reason and blackness. Specifically, her work explores how late 20th- and 21st-century literature by black women mobilizes these discourses to contest the figure of the 'mad black woman' and contemporary definitions of reason. Finch holds a Ph.D. in English from Brandeis University and a B.A. in English from the University of California, Davis. Her scholarly contributions include examining black feminism, queer media convergence, and African American literature, with notable publications addressing topics such as black madness, Afrofuturism, and the legacy of Octavia Butler. She has been recognized with awards including the McKnight Land-Grant Professorship and a postdoctoral fellowship at Brown University, reflecting her active engagement in advancing scholarship on race, gender, and literature.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Internal medicine
• Pediatrics
• Anatomy
• Surgery
• Pathology
• Biology

Selected publications

• Type I and Ir pleuropulmonary blastoma (PPB): A report from the International PPB/<i>DICER1</i> Registry

  Cancer · 2022 · 22 citations

  • Medicine
  • Pediatrics
  • Surgery

  BACKGROUND: Pleuropulmonary blastoma (PPB) is the most common lung cancer of infancy and early childhood. Type I PPB is a purely cystic lesion that has a microscopic population of primitive small cells with or without rhabdomyoblastic features and may progress to type II or III PPB, whereas type Ir lacks primitive small cells. METHODS: Children with suspected PPB were enrolled in the International PPB/DICER1 Registry. Pathology was centrally reviewed, and follow-up was ascertained annually. RESULTS: Between 2006 and 2022, 205 children had centrally reviewed type I or Ir PPB; 39% of children with type I and 5% of children with type Ir PPB received chemotherapy. Outcomes were favorable, although 11 children (nine with type I and two with type Ir PPB) experienced progression to type II/III (n = 8) or regrowth of type I PPB at the surgical site (n = 3), none of whom received chemotherapy before progression. Age and cyst size in combination were more suitable than either factor alone in predicting whether a particular lesion was type I or Ir PPB. CONCLUSIONS: For young children with type I PPB, outcomes are favorable, but complete resection is indicated because of the risk for progression. Chemotherapy may be useful in a subset of children at increased risk for recurrence/progression. Efforts to risk stratify children with type I PPB to optimize outcomes while reducing treatment-related side effects are underway.

  DOI

• Pleuropulmonary blastoma-like peritoneal sarcoma: a newly described malignancy associated with biallelic DICER1 pathogenic variation

  Modern Pathology · 2020 · 42 citations

  • Pathology
  • Medicine
  • Biology
  DOI

Frequent coauthors

• Jeffery A. Dusek

  University of California, Irvine

  116 shared

• Rachael L. Rivard

  HealthPartners

  91 shared

• Daniel Crespin

  RAND Corporation

  80 shared

• Jill Johnson

  University of Pennsylvania

  50 shared

• Jill R. Johnson

  42 shared

• Nicole Lurie

  Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations

  27 shared

• Kristen H. Griffin

  EDF Renewables

  25 shared

• Jon B. Christianson

  24 shared

Education

• PhD, Sociology

  University of Minnesota

Awards & honors

• McKnight Land-Grant Professorship, 2025-2027
• Pembroke Center, Brown University, Nancy L. Buc ’65 Postdoct…
• Social, Equity and Inclusion Grant, Rhode Island School of D…
• Mellon Dissertation-Year Fellowship, Brandeis University, 20…

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• Matt McGueh-125