Research Expertise and Interest

economic sociology, gender and sexualities, medicine, reproduction, Science and Technology studies

Research Description

Eliza Brown is an assistant professor in the Sociology Department and a sociologist specializes in reproduction.  She is particularly interested in temporality and anticipation, the role of money in medical interactions, and how medical providers and patients communicate about chance and risk, by using qualitative methods, including ethnography, depth interviews, and discourse analysis.  Her work has been published in American Sociological Review, Social Science & Medicine, Sociological Forum, and Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

She is currently writing a book based on her dissertation research on how fertility providers and patients negotiate the chance of twins as a byproduct of fertility treatments (under contract with University of Chicago Press).

Brown received her PhD in sociology from New York University in 2021.

REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS

Brown, Eliza, and Mary Patrick. 2018. "Time, anticipation, and the life course: egg freezing as temporarily disentangling romance and reproduction." American Sociological Review 83(5):959-982.

Brown, Eliza. 2020. "Projected diagnosis, anticipatory medicine, and uncertainty: How medical providers ‘rule out’ potential pregnancy in contraceptive counseling." Social Science & Medicine 258: 113118.

Brown, Eliza. 2022. "Less Like Magic, More Like a Chore: How Sex for the Purpose of Pregnancy Becomes a Third Shift for Women in Heterosexual Couples." Sociological Forum 37(2):465-485. 

Brown, Eliza. 2023. "Switching Clinics: Patient Autonomy over the Course of Their Careers in Consumer Medicine." Journal of Health and Social Behavior 64(2): 228-242.