Donna M. Goldstein in front of a pond
Professor
(Ph.D. • U. of California-Berkeley • 1994)

HALE 445

Office Hours
Fridays on Zoom from 12-2 and longer in-person meetings by appointment; email for times available

Professor Goldstein,who joined the CU faculty in 1994, received her B.S. in Rural Sociology from Cornell University, Ed.M., Psychology from Harvard Graduate School of Education, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Goldstein has written extensively on the intersection of race, gender, poverty and violence in Brazil. She is the author of the critically acclaimed, and winner of the 2005 Margaret Mead award for her contributions to public anthropology.Laughter Out of Placefocuses on the lives of impoverished domestic workers living in Rio de Janeiro’s infamous shantytowns who cope with unbearable suffering, violence, and social abandonment. The book came out in with a New Preface in 2013.

Currently, Professor Goldstein is working on a series of interconnected projects within medical anthropology and the anthropology of science. She is writing about pharmaceutical politics and neoliberalism in Argentina and the United States, and is investigating the history of genetics, Cold War science, the health of populations, and the future of nuclear energy in Brazil. She is currently leading a collaborative and interdisciplinary research project with colleagues at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation in Brazil and at CU. The team is investigating issues related to the health of populations living proximate to the Angra nuclear complex in Brazil.

Professor Goldstein served as Director of the Center to Advance Research and Teaching in the Social Sciences(2012-2016) where she worked on the initiative and other initiatives to support research in the social sciences at CU. She is one of the founders of the and is currently serving as the Director. as where she is organizing two new initiatives on the. One initiative is titled,and the second is titled,.

Professor Goldstein is one of the founders of the at CU and currently serves as its Director (2014-2015).

Selected Publications:


Graduate Studies Information

Projects and Research

  • Pharmaceutical politics
  • Bioethics
  • Regulation
  • Neoliberalism in Argentina and the United States
  • Cold War science and the history of nuclear energy in Brazil

*Professor Goldsteinis currently accepting Ph.D. applicants​ for Fall 2024