Columbia University Health & Society Scholar, Cohort 2 Assistant Professor of Sociology, Brandeis University
Sara Shostak is a sociologist whose research centers on the relationships between science, medicine, subjectivity and social order. She completed her Ph.D. in sociology at UC San Francisco; she also holds a M.P.H. from UC Los Angeles. Her dissertation was a qualitative and ethnographic study of the emergence of genetic/genomic practices within the environmental health sciences, their implications for professional and popular understandings of the concept of “risk,” and their applications in environmental health regulation and policymaking. As a Health & Society Scholar, Dr. Shostak has focused on the social, ethical, and political dimensions of genetics/genomics in the context of population health. Her current research examines genetics/genomics from the perspectives of people in families affected by epilepsy and mental illnesses, their health care providers, and their broader social networks.
Education & Training
University of California, San Francisco, PhD in Sociology, 2003
University of California, Los Angeles, MPH, 1997
Reed College, BA, Sociology, 1992
Shostak, S. Conrad, P., and A.V. Horwitz. (in press). “Sequencing and Its Consequences: Path Dependence and the Relationships Between Genetics and Medicalization.” American Journal of Sociology.
Shostak, S., Freese, J., Link, B.G., and J.C. Phelan. (in press). “The Politics of the Gene: Social Status and Beliefs about Genetics for Individual Outcomes.” Social Psychology Quarterly.
Shostak, S. (in press). “Marking Populations and Persons At Risk.” In Biomedicalization: Technoscience, Health, and Medicine in the U.S. Edited by Adele E. Clarke, Laura Mamo, Jennifer Fosket, Jennifer Fishman and Janet Shim. Durham, N.C.: Duke Unive
Shostak, S. and E. Rehel. 2007. “Changing the Subject: Science, Subjectivity, and the Structure of ‘Ethical Problems.’” Pp. 323-346 in Advances in Medical Sociology: Sociological Perspectives on Bioethical Issues. Edited by Barbara Katz Rothman, Eli
Shostak, S. 2007. “Translation at Work: Genetically Modified Mouse Models and Molecularization in the Environmental Health Sciences.” Science, Technology, and Human Values 32(3): 315-338.
Shostak, S. and R. Ottman. 2006. “Ethical, Social, and Policy Dimensions of Epilepsy Genetics.” Epilepsia 47(10): 1595-1602.
