Alexandra Stern
Alexandra Minna Stern is a professor at the University of Michigan, with appointments in the Departments of American Culture, Obstetrics and Gynecology, History, and Women’s Studies. She directs the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies/Brazil Initiative, and do-directs the Reproductive Justice Faculty Program in the Institute for Research on Women and Gender.
Her research has focused on the history of eugenics and the uses and misuses of genetics in the United States and Latin America. She has also written about the history of public health, infectious diseases, and tropical medicine. Through these topics, she explores the dynamics of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, disability, social difference, and reproductive politics.
Stern is the author of Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Mondern America (University of California Press, 2005), win won the Arthur Viseltear Award for outstanding contribution to the history of public health by the American Public Health Association. Her most recent book isTelling Genes: The Story of Genetic Counseling in America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012) which was named an Outstanding Academic Title in Health Sciences by Choice. She has written over 50 books and articles, and contributed to popular media stories about gender, medicine, and health in venues such as the huffingtonpost.com, Wall Street Journal, and the San Francisco Chronicle.