 | Barbara Koening Anthropology |
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03.01.2012-30.03.2012
Examining new genomic technologies
Barbara A. Koenig, an anthropologist who works within the interdisciplinary field of biomedical ethics, received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco. Currently, she is Professor of Medical Anthropology and of Bioethics in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, San Francisco. Previously, Koenig was Professor of Biomedical Ethics and of Medicine—and Director of the Biomedical Ethics Research Unit—at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Before her Mayo Clinic appointment she was on the faculty at Stanford University, where she served as Executive Director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics for a decade.
Koenig has pioneered the use of empirical social science methods in the study of ethical questions in science, medicine, and health. Topically, her research addresses: 1) new biomedical technologies, particularly those within the genomic sciences, and 2) care near the end of life. Her primary contribution is integrating the study of everyday practice—for example informed consent procedures or advance directives in bioethics, or classification systems in genetic research— with normative analysis. Her most recent book is a collection of essays titled, Revisiting Race in a Genomic Age.
While a Visiting Researcher at the Fondation Brocher she is completing several projects that stem from her work on novel genomic technologies. One is a narrative account of her experience in the field of “direct-to-consumer” personalized genomics, in which she grapples with an unexpected finding about her own ancestry as a way of revealing how new technologies shape the social meanings of race.
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