Shobita Parthasarathy is Associate Professor of Public Policy and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan. She studies policy and politics related to science and technology, as well as the politics of evidence and expertise in policymaking, in the United States, Europe, and India. She is the author of numerous articles and two books. Her second book, Patent Politics: Life Forms, Markets, and the Public Interest in the United States and Europe (University of Chicago Press, 2017) compares recent controversies over life form patents in the United States and Europe and demonstrates how political culture, ideology, and history shape patent systems in fundamental ways. Her first book, Building Genetic Medicine: Breast Cancer, Technology, and the Comparative Politics of Health Care (MIT Press, 2007), compared the development of genetic testing for breast cancer in the United States and Britain. Findings from this book helped to inform the 2013 US Supreme Court case over gene patents.
Her new research has two dimensions. The first aims to develop a better understanding of efforts to use science and technology to alleviate poverty and inequality, with a focus on India. The second explores the global politics of knowledge regarding these efforts, in an effort to understand why and how certain approaches to technology and poverty tend to dominate discussions and recommendations by international institutions. She is a Faculty Affiliate in UM's Science, Technology, and Society and Feminist Science Studies programs, and sits on the Council of the Society for the Social Studies of Science, as well as the Governing Council of the Science and Democracy Network.
To support her research, Prof. Parthasarathy has received fellowships and grants from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Competition, and Tax Law (Germany), the American Bar Foundation, the Wellcome Trust (UK), the National Science Foundation, and various programs at the University of Michigan.
Earlier in her career, Prof. Parthasarathy held postdoctoral fellowships at Northwestern University, the University of California—Los Angeles, and University of Cambridge. She has also worked for the National Academy of Sciences, RAND, Center for Science in the Public Interest, and the White House Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. She holds Masters and PhD degrees in Science and Technology Studies from Cornell University and a Bachelor's Degree in Biology from the University of Chicago.
Educational Background:
A.B. Biology, University of Chicago (also fulfilled degree requirements in Public Policy); M.A. Science and Technology Studies, Cornell University; Ph.D. Science and Technology Studies, Cornell University (minor: Government)
Professional Affiliations:
Society for the Social Studies of Science
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Science and Democracy Network
American Sociological Association
Selected Publications:
Shobita Parthasarathy (2017). Patent Politics: Life Forms, Markets, and the Public Interest in the United States and Europe. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Shobita Parthasarathy (forthcoming). "Grassroots Innovation Systems for a Post-Carbon World: Promoting Economic Democracy, Environmental Sustainability, and the Public Interest." Brooklyn Law Review.
Shobita Parthasarathy (2014). "Producing the Consumer of Genetic Testing for Breast Cancer: The Double-Edged Sword of Empowerment." In Kelly Moore and Daniel Kleinman, eds. Handbook of Science, Technology, and Society. Routledge.
Shobita Parthasarathy (2011). "Whose Knowledge? Whose Values? The Comparative Politics of Patenting Life Forms in the United States and Europe." Policy Sciences (Vol 44, No. 3, p. 267-288).
Shobita Parthasarathy (2010). "Breaking the Expertise Barrier: Understanding Activist Challenges to Science and Technology Policy Domains." Science and Public Policy. Vol. 37, No. 5, pp. 355-367.
Shobita Parthasarathy (2010). "The Implications of Direct to Consumer Genetic Testing for the Public's Health: Taking Sociotechnical Architectures Seriously." Genetics in Medicine. Vol. 12, No. 9.
Shobita Parthasarathy (2007). Building Genetic Medicine: Breast Cancer, Technology, and the Comparative Politics of Health Care. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
