Rene Almeling

Professor Almeling’s research and teaching interests are in gender, markets, medicine, and genetics. She recently completed a book manuscript, Sex Cells: The Medical Market in Eggs and Sperm, which compares how reproductive cells, and the women and men who donate them, are culturally and economically valued. This project received the Outstanding Dissertation Award from the Medical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association. Currently, she is interviewing genetic counselors for a new research project on genetic testing. She is also beginning a survey research project on women’s experiences of in vitro fertilization. In the past, she has collaborated on research about media depictions of obesity science and abortion training in obstetrics/gynecology residency programs. She received a BA in Gender Studies and Religious Studies from Rice University in 1998 and a PhD in Sociology from UCLA in 2008. From 2008 to 2010, she was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholar in Health Policy Research at the University of California, Berkeley.

WGSS 110 Sex & Gender in Society

WGSS 301 Gender, Race & Genetic Testing