Mette Nordahl Svendsen

Mette Nordahl Svendsen is Professor at the Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen within the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences. She currently serves as Head of the Section for Health Services Research (2021-2024) and leads the MeInWe research group (10-15 scholars). Previously, she was Professor MSO (2017-2021), Associate Professor (2008-2017), and Assistant Professor (2005-2008) at the same institution.

Her educational background includes a PhD in anthropology (2004) and MSc in anthropology (1996), both from the University of Copenhagen. She has undertaken research stays at Simon Frazer University (2023), University of Santa Cruz (2015), University of Lancaster (2002), and conducted fieldwork in Bucharest (1994).

Svendsen works at the intersection of medicine, health, and society with expertise in medical anthropology and Science and Technology Studies. Her research employs ethnographic methods to explore personalized medicine, animal-based experimental science, and reproductive medicine, focusing on ethical, existential, and political aspects across laboratory, clinic, and public spheres. Conceptually, she investigates border zones of human existence including person/thing, body/genome, human/animal, and life/death distinctions.

Her recent publications (2022-2025) demonstrate consistent scholarly output examining genomic politics, data ethics, reproductive health, and the societal implications of precision medicine. These works reveal her methodological innovation in multi-sited and multi-species comparative approaches, with particular attention to how biomedical technologies reshape concepts of life worth and belonging.

• Semper Ardens Distinction by the Carlsberg Foundation (2017)
• Steven Polgar Professional Paper Prize by the Society for Medical Anthropology (2015)
• Sapere Aude distinction by the Danish Research Council (2013)
• Cultural Horizons Prize by the Society for Cultural Anthropology (2012)

As Faculty PhD-coordinator for over 100 PhD students (2010-2013) and Director of the Master of Public Health Study Program (2016-2019), Svendsen has significantly contributed to academic training. Her current research portfolio includes substantial funding through 2028, notably as PI for PLANT:E (3.2 mio DKK, 2025-2028) and the MeInWe project (15 mio DKK, 2017-2024). She directs the MeInWe research group focused on personalized medicine's ethical, organizational, and legal dimensions, collaborating with health professionals and biomedical researchers to advance humanistic inquiry into medical technology.