Download Ellen Gruenbaum, Ph.D. Professor and Head Department of

Ellen Gruenbaum, Ph.D.
Professor and Head
Department of Anthropology
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
E-mail: [email protected]
Ellen Gruenbaum, Ph.D. is Professor and Inaugural Head of the
Department of Anthropology at Purdue University, West Lafayette,
Indiana, U.S.A.
As a culturally-oriented medical anthropologist, Dr. Gruenbaum’s primary areas of expertise are
women’s health issues, gender, religious practices, and development in Africa and the Middle
East.
Two health areas are particularly important in her work. First, she has used a feminist
anthropological framework to conduct research on female genital cutting practices (FGM/C) and
the change efforts promoting abandonment, especially in Sudan and Sierra Leone. She served as
a research consultant to UNICEF and CARE on FGM/C and has authored several reports,
numerous research articles, book chapters, and a book, The Female Circumcision
Controversy: An Anthropological Perspective (University of Pennsylvania Press).
Her second health focus involves cultural contexts affecting breast cancer knowledge, responses
and prevention possibilities, in Purdue’s cross-disciplinary project on International Breast Cancer
and Nutrition, with particular focus on collaborations in Ghana, Lebanon, and Uruguay. She
teaches in the areas of global health, medical anthropology, and international breast cancer
prevention, as well as other anthropology courses.
Her interest in the controversies among cultural self-determination, international human rights,
and women’s rights led to her past elected service on the Committee for Human Rights of the
American Anthropological Association, the Association for Feminist Anthropology, and the
Society for Medical Anthropology, as well as editorial service with several journals, including
the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies.
Ellen Gruenbaum studied Anthropology at Stanford University (A.B.) and the University of
Connecticut (M.A. and Ph.D.) She joined Purdue in 2008 after serving as Professor of
Anthropology and Dean of the College of Social Sciences at California State University, Fresno.
Among her honors, she has been a recipient of a Fulbright Teaching and Research Award in
Sweden, a Rockefeller Writing Fellowship in Bellagio, Italy, and awards from NEH and ACLS
for her work in Sudan.