Sarah Franklin facts for kids

Sarah Franklin (born in 1960) is an American anthropologist. An anthropologist is a scientist who studies human societies and cultures. She is famous for studying how new science and technology change our ideas about families and life itself.

Professor Franklin has explored topics like IVF (a medical process that helps people have babies), cloning, and stem cell research. She looks at how these new technologies affect people's lives and how we think about being related to one another. Her work has helped create a new field of study called the Anthropology of Science.

Education and Career

Sarah Franklin earned her first degree from Smith College in 1982. In 2011, the college gave her a Distinguished Alumnae Award for her important work. She continued her studies and earned advanced degrees from several universities, including the University of Kent, New York University, and the University of Birmingham.

She was one of the first anthropologists to do ethnographic research on new ways of having children. This means she studied people directly to understand their experiences.

Over the years, she has worked at major universities like the London School of Economics and the University of Cambridge. At Cambridge, she became the Professor of Sociology in 2011.

Research and Achievements

Professor Franklin has written or edited many books and over 150 articles about her research. Her work explores how science, especially in biology and genetics, connects with our daily lives and culture. She has led many major research projects with support from important organizations like The Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council in the UK.

Because of her important contributions, she has received several honors.

• In 2010, she was elected as a Fellow of the Society of Biology.
• In 2017, she became a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.
• In 2021, she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.

These fellowships are special honors given to leading experts in their fields.

Selected Books

Professor Franklin has written many influential books. Here are a few of her most well-known works:

• Biological Relatives: IVF, stem cells and the future of kinship (2013) - This book explores how technologies like IVF change our understanding of family relationships.
• Dolly Mixtures: the remaking of genealogy (2007) - This book discusses the famous cloned sheep, Dolly, and what cloning means for our ideas about family trees and identity.
• Born and Made: an ethnography of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (2006) - Co-written with Celia Roberts, this book looks at the process of testing embryos for genetic conditions before pregnancy.
• Embodied Progress: a cultural account of assisted conception (1997) - An early book where she studied the cultural impact of technologies that help people get pregnant.