Marcia C. Inhorn

Areas of Specialization: Medical Anthropology
Marcia C. Inhorn is the William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at Yale University. She earned her MPH and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a recognized expert in gender, fertility, and women’s health. Her research into the social impacts of infertility in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon made her the first anthropologist to conduct such a study in the Middle East.

She found the stigmatization of infertility for Egyptian women and the social pressures faced by childless women. She investigated the cultural and societal forces at work when assistive reproductive technologies became an option. She likewise studied these impacts in Lebanon, where male infertility is quite common. In Lebanon, the use of assistive reproductive technologies was not only acceptable, but a demonstration of masculinity.

She has written six books, including The New Arab Man: Emergent Masculinities, Technologies, and Islam in the Middle East, and Local Babies, Global Science: Gender, Religion, and In Vitro Fertilization in Egypt, which was awarded the Diana Forsythe Prize for Outstanding Feminist Anthropological Research on Work, Science, and Technology.

She is an associate editor for the journal Global Public Health, and the founding editor of the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies.

Academic Website

Featured in Top Influential Anthropologists Today

Interview with Marcia C. Inhorn