Lewin, Ellen

Ellen Lewin, a full professor in the Departments of Anthropology and Women's Studies at the University of Iowa, earned her Ph.D. from Stanford in 1975. Dr. Lewin's major research interests center on motherhood, reproduction, and sexuality, particularly as these are played out in American cultures. Over the course of her career, she has completed studies that focus on low-income Latina immigrants in San Francisco, lesbian mothers, and lesbian and gay commitment ceremonies in the United States. Her current book in progress focuses on gay fathers—men who have fathered or adopted children either on their own or with male co-parents or who became parents during earlier heterosexual unions.

As a scholar working at the juncture of feminist, cultural, and medical anthropology, Lewin's work has long concerned the ...