Thea Chung Awarded Hoopes Prize and Harris Prize for "Heart to Heart: Caregiving Relationships Between the Doulas and Mothers of Elmhurst, Queens"

The Department of Anthropology congratulates graduating senior Thea Chung, whose thesis has been recognized with both the Thomas T. Hoopes Prize and the Seymour E. and Ruth B. Harris Prize — two of Harvard's most distinguished honors for undergraduate scholarship.

Thea's thesis, "Heart to Heart:" Caregiving Relationships Between the Doulas and Mothers of Elmhurst, Queens, was supervised by Professor Byron Good. The project asks what medical institutions cannot hear about the birthing experiences of under-resourced women, and how community birth doulas listen and respond through care. Over three months of ethnographic fieldwork in Elmhurst, Queens, Thea interviewed, observed, and participated as a trained doula among predominantly foreign-born communities of color, tracing the individual and communal significance of caregiving relationships.

Doulas provide continuous emotional, physical, and informational support during the perinatal period and have emerged as a state-funded response to racially disparate maternal health outcomes. Where existing scholarship tends to flatten doula care into effective/ineffective and political/apolitical binaries, Thea's work is methodologically attentive to the deeper complexities of caring for mothers with structural needs — needs exacerbated by healthcare cuts and immigration crackdowns. The thesis argues that shared immigrant, racial, and linguistic identities facilitate a unique proximity between mothers and doulas that strengthens care in ways medical providers cannot replicate. At the same time, this proximity places a distinct affective burden on doulas, whose care draws on identities that mirror the struggles of those they serve. As states expand reliance on doulas without adequate compensation or protection, Thea's work raises important questions about the risk of reproducing racialized and gendered inequalities in care work.

Photo: NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst banner at Bolivian Day Parade in Jackson Heights. Taken by Thea Chung in July 2025.

Reflecting on her time in the department, Thea writes: 

I am so grateful to the women central to this thesis, who shared with me the ache, urgency, and hopefulness of sustaining their communities through relationships of care. Thank you to Byron Good, Andrew Bair, Lilia Kilburn, Hanna Amanuel, Damina Khiara for helping my project find its earliest and final forms. I am also thankful for the guidance of Andrea Wright, Julia Fierman, Marty Zeve, Arthur Kleinman, and Salmaan Keshavjee. In the spaces of your offices and classrooms, I learned and grappled with the ideas that shaped this thesis. The Anthropology Department cultivated in me a strong care for ethnography, singular in its commitment to engaging interior worlds; it taught me how to see people and environments attentively and to articulate complexity. 

The Department extends its congratulations to Thea on this well-deserved recognition.