Maura Stephens-Chu

Maura Stephens-Chu is a CJS Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Japanese Studies (CJS) at the University of Michigan. She previously served as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Miami University, Ohio. She holds a PhD and MA in Anthropology from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa.

Her research focuses on medical and cultural anthropology, with a particular emphasis on menstruation in contemporary Japan. Through interdisciplinary approaches combining anthropology, Japanese studies, gender studies, history, and science and technology studies, she explores embodied experiences of menstruation, commercial menstrual products, and historical taboos. Her work includes ethnographic research in Tokyo on young women’s perceptions and education about menstruation.

Currently, she investigates layperson and medical understandings of menstrual irregularities, such as endometriosis and amenorrhea. No academic awards or grants are explicitly mentioned in the text.

Her research outputs include a published article in Silva Iaponicarum on historical shifts in menstrual perceptions in Japan.