Lesley A. Sharp

Lesley A. Sharp is the Barbara Chamberlain & Helen Chamberlain Josefsberg ’30 Professor of Anthropology at Barnard College, Columbia University, with a joint appointment as Senior Research Scientist in Sociomedical Sciences at the Columbia University Medical Center. Her research bridges medical anthropology, science and technology studies, and bioethics, focusing on the moral dimensions of biomedical practices.

Education includes a BA in English and American Literature from Brandeis University and MA/PhD in Medical Anthropology from UC Berkeley and UCSF. Her scholarship examines body commodification, interspecies ethics, and experimental science through ethnographic work spanning Madagascar to US medical institutions.

Research explores suffering, biomedicine's transformative properties, and moral conundrums in biotechnology. Recent work investigates prison hospice programs and lab animal ethics, with publications analyzing organ transplantation, biosecurity, and human-animal relationships in scientific contexts.

Honors include the Guggenheim Fellowship, Wellcome Medal, and multiple teaching awards recognizing her contributions to anthropological theory and medical ethics.