I am a cultural anthropologist whose work spans science and technology studies, theories of gender and race, social studies of medicine, and bioethics. My research and teaching have examined—and challenged—scientific and medical beliefs about gender, sexuality, and the body across a range of topics. Most recently, I was Professor of Sexuality, Women’s, and Gender Studies at Amherst College. I previously held appointments at Yale University, Stanford University, and Brooklyn College, CUNY, where I was the Carol Zicklin Chair in the Honors Academy. I have also served as a Visiting Professor at Emory University. In 2016, I was named a Guggenheim Fellow.

My book, Testosterone: An Unauthorized Biography, co-written with Rebecca Jordan-Young and published by Harvard University Press, was awarded the Gold Medal in Science from the Independent Publisher Book Awards. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Brocher Foundation, and an American Council of Learned Societies Research Fellowship.

My work on testosterone grew out of earlier research on “sex testing” and regulations governing women athletes with naturally high testosterone. This research has appeared in Science, The American Journal of Bioethics, BMJ, and Feminist Formations. I contributed to Dutee Chand’s successful appeal of the IAAF’s testosterone regulation at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and served as an expert witness in the hearing. I also consulted with Caster Semenya’s team prior to her CAS hearing.

My early research focused on controversies over medical treatment for people with intersex traits, which I examined in Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience (Duke University Press, 2008). Fixing Sex was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in 2009 and a nominee for the Margaret Mead Award in 2010.

My writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, Wired, and the New York Review of Books, among other outlets.

My research has been featured in major national and international media, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Nature, Scientific American, Der Spiegel, El País, Le Monde, The Times of India, The Indian Express, and The Sunday Times of South Africa. I have also appeared on the BBC, NPR, Al Jazeera, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Channel Africa, and Metro FM in South Africa.

I hold a doctorate in Cultural Anthropology and a Master’s in Public Health, both from Columbia University.