Lys Alcayna-Stevens

Dr. Lys Alcayna-Stevens is an Associate Professor in Medical Anthropology at the University of Oxford's Institute of Social & Cultural Anthropology, affiliated with St Catherine's College. She combines medical anthropology with political ecology, multispecies ethnography, and science & technology studies to examine health-environment intersections in central Africa.

Education:

• PhD in Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge

Research Focus spans epidemic disease, environmental conservation, and racial capitalism in postcolonial Africa. Her work on Ebola outbreaks, vaccine hesitancy, and great ape research interrogates global-local power dynamics through ethnographic fieldwork in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Key Projects include the EU-funded POSTGROWTH initiative (2022-23) addressing global resource reduction and the 2023 Evans-Pritchard Lecturer series at Oxford. She currently teaches Critical Medical Anthropology, Ecologies of Disease, and Human Ecology.

Scientific Contributions include:

• Primates: Introduction (2020) in Cahiers d'Anthropologie Sociale
• Internal Others: Ethnographies of Naturalism (2012) in Cambridge Anthropology

Awards & Fellowships

• Marie-Skłodowska Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship
• Evans-Pritchard Lecturer (2023)

Current DPhil Students:

• Gillian Chan
• Ogden Olivas