Risk and Intent: An Ethical, Legal, and Social Analysis of Body Boundaries in the Age of Biotechnology

Leigh E. Rich completed a master’s degree in cultural anthropology (with an emphasis in medical anthropology) at the University of Arizona and a doctorate in health and behavioral sciences, an interdisciplinary program at the University of Colorado-Denver. She has worked as a journalist and a temporary lecturer of anthropology at the International College at Moscow State University. She recently was promoted to associate professor of public health at Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, Georgia, in the United States, where she co-directs the nascent Center for Public Health Media and Research. She also currently serves as co-editor in chief of the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry. Her research interests include bioethics and the law, the philosophy of medicine, the representation of social roles in mass media, health communication, and qualitative data analysis. At the Brocher Foundation, Leigh will be working on a book examining how advances in biotechnology throughout the 20th century have shaped cultural and legal notions of “body boundaries,” decision-making authority over bodies and body parts, and the distinction between the body as commodifiable and the body as “sacred” or integral to identity.