Eliza Brown

 Eliza Brown

Eliza Brown

Assistant Professor
Office
Social Sciences Building 499
Curriculum Vitae
Research Interests
Economic Sociology; Gender and Sexualities; Medicine; Reproduction; Science and Technology Studies

I am a sociologist who specializes in reproduction. I am particularly interested in temporality and anticipation, the role of money in medical interactions, and how medical providers and patients communicate about chance and risk. I use qualitative methods, including ethnography, depth interviews, and discourse analysis. My work has been published in American Sociological Review, Social Science & Medicine, Sociological Forum, and Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

I am writing a book based on my 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). I received my 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.