Risa Cromer

Promoted to Associate Professor
Department of Anthropology
risac@purdue.edu

Risa Cromer received her master’s and Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, her bachelor's degree from Willamette University in gender studies, and a graduate certificate in women's studies from the CUNY Graduate Center. She is a nationally recognized cultural anthropologist focused on medicine, bioethics, science, and technology who investigates social justice issues within bioethical controversies concerning reproduction, race, and disability.

Last year, Cromer published her debut book, Conceiving Christian America: Embryo Adoption and Reproductive Politics (New York University Press). It is the first book on embryo adoption tracing how this powerful social movement draws on white saviorist tropes in their aims to reconceive personhood, with drastic consequences for reproductive rights and justice. Her publications include 20 peer-reviewed articles in leading and flagship anthropology and interdisciplinary journals, one book chapter, three editor-reviewed publications, six web-based publications and an online exhibition of creative work. In her applied work, she has contributed to team research projects on mental health services for veterans. She stays active within grassroots efforts around reproductive justice, including serving as a full-spectrum doula, talkline advocate, community conversation project originator, and online accompaniment for abortion-seekers.

Cromer’s research has been supported by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Brocher Foundation, Stanford University, and the City University of New York.

Before joining the Purdue faculty in 2019, she collaborated on interdisciplinary teams as a postdoctoral fellow in the Thinking Matters program and Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford University. In 2018, she was a visiting scholar in the Reproductive Sociology Research Group at Cambridge University.