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Katherine Hendy, Ph.D.

Research Fellow
U-M Primary Appointment
Health Behavior &amp
I am currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) of Genomics Learner program in the Public Health at the University of Michigan. I earned my Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in sociocultural anthropology and a M.A. from the University of Chicago in the social sciences. My research uses ethnographic methods to examine how societal views shape the uptake of new medical interventions, and in turn, how new interventions can reshape how individuals think of health and illness. I have explored these issues both through my doctoral research on the development of the drug MDMA—better known as the recreational drug “ecstasy”—as a treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder—and in my planned research on the use of pharmacogenomics for mood disorders. My research and Learner have been funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, and my research has been published in Medical Anthropology Quarterly and Culture Medicine and Psychiatry.
Research Focus
Research Methods