Benjamin Hegarty

Benjamin Hegarty is a Senior Research Fellow in the Asia and Pacific Health Program at the Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney, and a Research Affiliate at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford. He holds a PhD from the Australian National University (ANU), an MA from Monash University, and a BA from Griffith University. His research bridges medical anthropology, transgender studies, and queer theory, focusing on health inequities and gender norms, particularly in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. He leads projects on transgender rights, HIV/AIDS policy, and the intersection of health and human rights for marginalized populations.

Key research interests include the anthropology of technology, gender citizenship, and the globalization of transgender knowledge. Notable achievements include authoring The Made-Up State: Technology, Trans Femininity, and Citizenship in Indonesia (2022), which won the 2023 Anne Bolin and Gilbert Herdt Book Prize. He has also received the 2018 Australian Anthropological Society PhD Thesis Prize and ANU Gender Institute recognition.

Current projects include a French Institutes for Advanced Studies Fellowship (2024–2025) exploring viral symbiosis and multispecies anthropology. Hegarty’s work appears in journals like Medical Anthropology, American Ethnologist, and Global Public Health. He is affiliated with initiatives such as the Australian Human Rights Institute and the Center for HIV AIDS Research at Atma Jaya Catholic University.