Andrea Ford

Dr Andrea Ford (she/her) is a medical and cultural anthropologist in the Centre for Biomedicine, Self, and Society at the University of Edinburgh. She holds a PhD from the University of Chicago, an MA from the University of Ghana, Legon, and a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, and has done public-facing work for Stanford Medicine and The FrameWorks Institute in Washington DC. Andrea’s work lies at the intersection of reproductive and environmental justice. Currently, she is researching endometriosis, hormones, and endocrine disruption. Past research projects have investigated childbearing, abortion, and period tracking apps. She is also currently working at the interface between social science and health technology development.  In January 2024, she will become a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow and take up a 5-year project investigating the FemTech ecosystem.

Key research interests include:

• Epistemology
• The body
• Gender
• Political economy
• Social justice.

Current and notable research projects/ publications:

• Ford, Andrea, Giulia De Togni, and Livia Miller. “Hormonal Health: Period Tracking Apps, Wellness, and Self-Management in the Era of Surveillance Capitalism.” Engag Sci Technol Soc 7, no. 1 (2021)
• Ford, A. (2020). Birthing from Within: Nature, Technology, and Self-Making in Silicon Valley Childbearing. Cultural Anthropology, 35(4). https://doi.org/10.14506/ca35.4.05
• Ford, A. (2020). Purity is not the Point: Childbearing and the Impossibility of Boundaries. Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.28968/cftt.v6i1.32314
• Ford, A. (2019). Advocating for evidence in birth: Proving cause, effecting outcomes, and making the case for ‘curers’. Medicine Anthropology Theory. https://doi.org/10.17157/mat.6.2.674

Her monograph Near Birth: Embodied Futures in California is under review.