Sara Shostak
Assistant Professor of Sociology
email: sshostak@brandeis.edu
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Focus of Research Sociology of Health and Illness, Science and Technology Studies, Body and Society, Sociology and Bioethics, Environmental Health and Justice, Qualitative Research Methods. Education Ph.D., Sociology, University of California San Francisco, 2003 MPH, University of California Los Angeles, 1997 B.A., Sociology, Reed College, 1992 |
Sara Shostak joined the Department of Sociology in 2006. Her research and teaching interests include sociology of health and illness; science and technology studies; the sociology of the body; sociological perspectives on bioethics; environmental health and justice; genetics/genomics; research methods. Prior to coming to Brandeis, Professor Shostak was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at Columbia University.
Professor Shostak's research centers on emerging relationships between science, medicine, subjectivity and social organization. Her current book project -- Defining Vulnerabilities: Genes, the Environment, and the Politics of Population Health -- examines the emergence of genetic/genomic disciplines in the environmental health sciences and their consequences for the wider arena of environmental health in the United States. Her analysis draws on data from in-depth qualitative interviews, ethnographic participant observation, and historical materials, enabling consideration of the perspectives of environmental health scientists, risk assessors, policy makers, and environmental health and justice activists.
Professor Shostak served as an associate editor of a special issue of the American Journal of Sociology focused on how sociologists can use genetic information as a lever to illuminate dimensions of social organization and complex social processes, thereby advancing sociological theory and research methods. She recently completed a collaborative analysis of how people make use of "nature" and "nurture" in their accounts of inequalities across individual level outcomes (e.g., health, intelligence, and success in life). She currently is working on a study that examines change over time in the illness experiences and processes of identity formation among people with epilepsy and their family members (1975 to 2005).
Her research and teaching has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the ASA Teaching Enhancement Fund, the Epilepsy Foundation, the University of California Toxic Substances Research and Teaching Program, the UC Berkeley Program in Social Studies of Science and Technology, the Andrew Vincent White and Florence Wales White Fellowship in Medicine and the Humanities, the University of California Humanities Research Institute, the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, and the American Cancer Society.
Current Research Projects
Defining Vulnerabilities: Genes, the Environment, and the Politics of Population Health (Book project)
Illness and the Processes of Identity Formation (With Tammy Smith and Dana Zarhin)
Having Epilepsy in the Age of the Genome (With Ruth Ottman and Peter Conrad)
Recent Publications
Journal
2008.Genetics and Social Structure. Special issue of the American Journal of Sociology, Volume 114, Number S1. (With Peter Bearman and Molly Martin)
Selected Articles
In press. "Genetics and Social Inquiry." Annual Review of Sociology. (With Jeremy Freese)
2009. "The Politics of the Gene: Social Status and Beliefs about Genetics for Individual Outcomes." Social Psychology Quarterly 72(1): 77-93. (With Jeremy Freese, Bruce Link, and Jo Phelan)
2008. "Sequencing and Its Consequences: Path Dependence and the Relationships Between Genetics and Medicalization." American Journal of Sociology 114 (S1): S287-S316. (With Peter Conrad and Allan V. Horwitz)
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, Elizabeth Armstrong, Rebecca Tiger. Oxford: Elsevier/JAI Press. (With Erin Rehel).
2007. "Translation At Work: Genetically Modified Mouse Models and Molecularization in the Environmental Health Sciences." Science, Technology, and Human Values 32(3): 315-338
2006. "Ethical, Social, and Policy Dimensions of Epilepsy Genetics." Epilepsia 47(10): 1595-1602. (With Ruth Ottman)
2006. "Implications of Welfare Reform for the Elderly: A Case Study of Provider, Advocate, and Consumer Perspectives." Journal of Aging and Social Policy 18(1): 41-63. (With Carroll Estes, Sheryl Goldberg, Chris Wellin, Karen Linkins, and Renee Beard)
2005. "The Emergence of Toxicogenomics: A Case Study of Molecularization." Social Studies of Science 35(3): 367-403.
2005. "Of Mice and Molecules: Research with Genetically Modified Mouse Models at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences." Environmental Health Perspectives, Special Issue on The Future of Environmental Health: 90-99.
2005. "Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening Practices for Low-Income Asian American Women in Ethnic-Specific Clinics." California Journal of Health Promotion 3(3): 180-192. (With Marjorie Kagawa-Singer, Liane Dong, Chantal Rayner, and Rod Lew).
2004. "Environmental Justice and Genomics: Acting on the Futures of Environmental Health." Science as Culture 13(4): 539-562.
2003. "Locating Gene-Environment Interaction: At the Intersections of Genetics and Public Health." Social Science and Medicine 56:2327-2342.