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Research team
This project is a collaborative piece of research involving researchers from various countries and with a co-applicant in each of the three Latin American countries. This structure is common to the first and second phases of the project.
Director and Co-applicants
The senior members of the research team are:
Professor Peter Wade, Social Anthropology, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK (peter.wade@manchester.ac.uk). Project Director.
Professor Ricardo Ventura Santos, Museu Nacional, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro and Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (santos@ensp.fiocruz.br)
Professor Carlos López Beltrán, Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico (carloslopezbeltran@gmail.com)
Professor Eduardo Restrepo, Instituto de Estudios Sociales y Culturales (Pensar), Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia (eduardoa.restrepo@gmail.com)
Research Associates
We appointed three Research Associates to work in each of the three Latin American countries. For Colombia, the RA changed between phase one and phase two. The RAs' details are as follows.
María Fernanda Olarte Sierra (Colombia post; phase 1, until July 2011)
María Fernanda studied anthropology at the University of los Andes in Bogotá. In 2004 she completed her MA in Medical Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. Her master’s thesis was on “Surviving machines: on how nurses cope with suffering, death and medical ideology in an Intensive Care Ward”. From January 2006 till January 2010 María Fernanda did her doctoral research on “Achieving the desirable nation. Antenatal testing and abortion in Colombia: the case of amniocentesis”, funded by the Netherlands Fellowship Programme. Her research interests are in Science and Technology Dynamics, and Medical Anthropology.
Ernesto Schwartz Marín (Colombia post: phase 2, from October 2011)
Before taking up this post, Ernesto finished his PhD
in Genomics in Society at EGENIS (the ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society) at the University of Exeter. His PhD explores the construction of a sovereign realm around human genomic science in Mexico.
Previously he completed an
MSc in Genomics in Society at Exeter University. Prior to that he did
a BA in International Affairs at the Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey.
Vivette García Deister (Mexico post)
Vivette did a BSc in Biology at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, followed by an MA in the Philosophy of Science, completed in 2005. In 2009, she finished her doctorate in Philosophical and social studies of science and technology at UNAM, with a thesis on “Switches, batteries and networks: complexity management in gene regulation”. She is also an Adjunct Lecturer in History and Philosophy of Biology at UNAM and has spent periods as a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, and at the Philosophy Department, UC Davis.
Sandra P. González Santos (Mexico post: maternity leave cover for VGD)
Sandra will cover Vivette's maternity leave for 6 months from October 2011. She has a PhD in Sociology from the University of Sussex (2011), with the title "The Sociocultural aspects of assisted reproduction in Mexico". Prior to that she did the MSc in Science, Culture, Communication at the University of Bath. Her undergraduate degree was in Psychology at the Universidad Iberoamericana.
Michael Kent (Brazil post)
Michael has a BA/MA (2000) in Anthropology from the VU University Amsterdam and a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Manchester (2008). In 2002-3 he held research and teaching positions at the University of Amsterdam.
Michael’s initial research focus was on the interrelations between environmental conservation, development and social conflict, with research in Brazil, Costa Rica and Bolivia. His PhD project was primarily concerned with issues of ethnicity and politics, in particular with reinterpreting the relationship between the state and indigenous people in the Peruvian Andes (Lake Titicaca). In 2009 Michael worked at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, VU University Amsterdam, as a fixed-term lecturer and as Research Fellow in the project “Natural resources and social conflict: a trans-Amazonian comparative perspective”.
Research Assistants
We employed three local Research Assistants, who work with the co-applicant and the Research Associate in each Latin American country for six months. These assistants have changed between phases one and two in Colombia and Mexico.
Mariana Rios Sandoval (Mexico: phase 1)
Mariana has a Masters in Medical Anthropology from the University of Amsterdam (2007), which included a thesis on “Being a father, being a man: construction of masculinity and fatherhood among some men in Mexico City”. Before that she did an undergraduate degree in Biology at UNAM, México (2003).
Abigail Nieves Delgado (Mexico: phase 2)
Abigail did a masters in the Philosophy of Science at the Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Her MA thesis was titled "From the egotistical gene to systems in development: alternative visions of contemporary biology". She also has an undergraduate dgree in Biology from the Universidad de las Américas, Mexico.
Adriana Díaz del Castillo H. (Colombia: phase 1)
Adriana did the Masters in Medical Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam (2007), with a thesis on “Swinging between control and contingency: embodied experiences of young adults with type 1 diabetes living in the Netherlands and England”. Prior to that she completed a degree in Medicine at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (2004).
Roosbelinda Cárdenas González (Colombia: phase 2)
Roosbelinda is completing a PhD in Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She also has MAs in Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz, and in Latin American Studies, University of Texas, Austin. Her undergraduate training was in Anthropology and Economics, at Swarthmore College.
Verlan Valle Gaspar Neto (Brazil)
Verlan is doing a doctorate in Anthropology at the Universidade Federal Fluminense, on Biological Antropology in Brazil today. He has a Masters in Anthropology from the same university (2008), with a thesis titled “Na Pegação: Encontros Homoeróticos Masculinos em Juiz de Fora”. He also has a degree in social sciences from the Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora (2005) and is currently studying for a degree in biological sciences at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.