Academic position: Reader of Medical Anthropology
Department: Anthropology
Email: s.gibbon@ucl.ac.uk
Website: Prof.Sahra Gibbon
Biography:
Professor Gibbon gained her PhD in Anthropology from UCL in 2003 after completing an MSc in Medical Anthropology also at UCL. Her doctoral research was based in the UK examining the social and cultural context of 'breast cancer genetics' looking at the interface between gendered cultures of breast cancer activism and the translation of knowledge and technologies associated with two inherited susceptibility genes BRCA1/2.
Prof. Gibbon subsequently undertook postdoctoral research in the UK, Cuba and Brazil examining the changing dynamics between different publics, science and knowledge in an era of so called 'post-genomic' medicine, including the relationship between public health and the promise of personalised medicine, health inequalities and how (in Brazil) questions of genetic ancestry, identity and risk are co-configured. She has developed collaborative research in Brazil and Mexico engaging with Critical Medical Anthropology, embodiment and health inequalities. She has long standing interests in inter-disciplinary research, particularly in relation to emerging fields of biosocial science and including in the context of longitudinal birth cohort studies. She co-convenes the Biosocial Birth Cohort Research Network and is PI for the Wellcome Trust funds ‘Biosocial Lives of Birth Cohorts’ project.
Prof. Gibbon convenes the UK’s first ever MSc in Biosocial Medical Anthropology and is deeply committed to cross-disciplinary dialogue, exchange and engagement in, and beyond the university, concerning health, environments and biosocial approaches.
Research Projects:
- Biosocial Birth Cohort Research Network
- Biosocial Lives of Birth Cohorts (Wellcome Trust funded 4 year Investigator Award)
- Embodied Inequalities of the Anthropocene (with Jennie Gamlin IGH)
Teaching:
- ANTH0100 Health, Environment and Biosocial Anthropology (PG level 7)
- ANTH066 Anthropologies of Science, Society and Biomedicine (PG level 7 and UG level 6)
- ANTH0220 Nutrition, Health and Culture (UG level 6 and PG level 7)