I am an anthropologist with expertise in food studies, medical anthropology, and the social study of science. For the past twenty years I have carried out ethnographic research on the fields of nutrition and public health in Guatemala, resulting in dozens of peer-reviewed publications, an edited volume, and two books. I am starting a new research project that explores cultural memory and nuclear history in South Dakota. 

I hold a PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology from New York University; a Masters in Latin American Studies from Stanford University; and undergraduate degrees in Human Biology and Anthropological Sciences from Stanford University. I was raised at the edge of wilderness on an island in Alaska-- an experience that has shaped my lifelong interest in urbanization, development, and settler colonialism. Before joining the faculty at Oregon State, I spent seven years at the University of Amsterdam. 

Research:

• 2024-2025
  "Nuclear Stories: Fallout, Scientific Truths, and the Half-Life of Memory." Funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation.

• 2023-2024
  "Archival Accounts of Nuclear Fallout in South Dakota in the 1950s." Funded by the South Dakota Humanities Council. 

• 2018-2023
  Principal Investigator, European Research Council Starting Grant: “Global Future Health: A Multi-Sited Ethnography of an Adaptive Intervention.”

• 2015-2017
  Principal Investigator, VENI Innovational Research Incentives Scheme: “When Global Health Meets Local Development: A Case Study of the ‘First 1000 Days of Life’ Intervention in Guatemala.” Financed by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO)

• 2011-2014
  Postdoctoral Research on the project, “The Eating Body in Western Practice & Theory.” Financed by a European Research Council Advanced Grant; Supervised by Annemarie Mol  

• 2004-2011
  Dissertation Research, “The Weight of the Body: Changing Ideals of Fatness, Nourishment, & Health in Guatemala.” Committee: Emily Martin (Chair), Thomas Abercrombie, Rayna Rapp

Publications

2024

BOOK

Yates-Doerr, Emily. Mal-Nutrition: Maternal Health Science and the Reproduction of Harm. University of California Press, 2024. Open Access.

BOOK CHAPTER

Kaul, Shivani and Emily Yates-Doerr. “Interdependence: Reworking Ontogeny through Tendrel Fishbones and Dirty Chickens.” In: The Handbook of DOHaD & Society: Past, present and future directions of biosocial collaboration, edited by M. Pentecost, J. Keaney, T. Moll, & Michael Penkler. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press pp. 267-278. Open Access. 

Thompson, Andie and Emily Yates-Doerr. “The Measure of a Mother: Accounting for Postpartum Hemorrhage in Global Health.” In The Handbook of Anthropology and Global Health. Eds, Ellen Foley and Tsitsi Masvawure. Routledge. pp. 89-103

“Ontogenesis as interdependence.” In: The Handbook of DOHaD & Society: Past, Present and Future Directions of Biosocial Collaboration, edited by M. Pentecost, J. Keaney, T. Moll, & Michael Penkler. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Co-Authored with Shivani Kaul.