Sarah Franklin

Who is Sarah Franklin?

Sarah Franklin is an American anthropologist who has substantially contributed to the fields of feminism, gender theory, and the social study of reproductive and genetic technology. She has conducted fieldwork on IVF, cloning, embryology and stem cell research. Her work combines both ethnographic methods and kinship theory, with more recent approaches from science studies, gender and cultural studies. In 2001 she was appointed to a Personal Chair in the Anthropology of Science, the first of its kind in the UK, and a field she has helped to create. She became Professor of Social Studies of Biomedicine in the Department of Sociology at the London School of Economics in 2004. In 2011 she was elected to the Professorship of Sociology at the University of Cambridge.

Franklin is a graduate of Smith College from which she received a Distinguished Alumnae Award in 2011. She has an MA in Women's Studies from the University of Kent, an MA in Anthropology from New York University and a PhD from Birmingham University's Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. She is one of the first anthropologists to undertake ethnographic research on new reproductive technologies.