Arbel Griner is an Associate Research Scholar with Princeton University’s Global Health Program. She received her PhD in Social Medicine from IMS/UERJ, a prestigious institute for policy-, epidemiologic- and social-related studies on biomedicine in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She uses her multi-disciplinary training in social medicine, social studies of science and technology and anthropology to produce a nuanced critical perspective of how ideas of pathology, normality and health are conceptualized in contemporary science (especially neurosciences) and how these ideas are integrated into medicine, public health, and ethical debates.

Arbel’s health-related research and teaching unfolds in conversation with three broad themes: science production and its entanglements with diagnostic and therapeutic processes in contemporary psychology; gender equity and health; and the making and unmaking of health crises and emergencies. Her recent work has evolved around scrutinizing the claims of neuroscientists and their theories about biological affectivity, and examining the ways in which they are appropriated by biomedical practices and bioethical regulation. With a group of women scientists, bioethicists and practitioners from Brazil, Arbel has also been studying the making of both the Zika and the Covid-19 epidemics in the country through public policy approaches, and particularly how they affect the lives of women. The work on maternal mortality in Brazil during Covid-19 has yielded interesting findings on the importance of adopting an intersectional lens and gender-centered responses to epidemics in public health. The importance of such work has been celebrated with awards and through publications in different journals.