Faculty

Dr. Parthasarathy is Associate Professor of Public Policy and Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan. She also directs the university’s Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program. Parthasarathy’s research explores the politics of science and technology, often in comparative perspective, with the goal of encouraging policies that can better serve the public interest and achieve social justice goals. Her current work investigates the 21^st century politics of technologies designed to help the poor, with a focus in India.

She is the author of numerous articles and two books: Patent Politics: Life Forms, Markets, and the Public Interest in the United States and Europe (University of Chicago Press, 2017) and Building Genetic Medicine: Breast Cancer, Technology, and the Comparative Politics of Health Care (MIT Press, 2007). Findings fromBuilding Genetic Medicine influenced the 2013 US Supreme Court decision prohibiting patents on isolated human genes. She has advised the US HHS Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health, and Society, the Austrian Genome Research Program, the European Patent Office, and the US Government Accountability Office, among other science and technology policymaking institutions. To support her research, she has received grants and fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the American Council of Learned Societies, the UK Wellcome Trust, the German Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, the American Bar Foundation, and the US National Science Foundation.

Ph.D. Cornell University; B.S. University of Chicago