Stephan Kloos

Stephan Kloos is a Senior Researcher and Deputy Director at the Austrian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for Social Anthropology (ISA) in Vienna. He served as Acting Director of ISA from 2019 to 2023 and holds a PhD in Medical Anthropology from the Universities of California, San Francisco and Berkeley, as well as a Habilitation in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Vienna.

• Education: PhD (UCSF & UCB, 2010), Habilitation (University of Vienna).

His research focuses on the sociocultural, political, and economic dimensions of Tibetan, Mongolian, and Asian medical traditions within Global Health frameworks. He has pioneered concepts like pharmaceutical assemblages and humanitarianism from below, analyzing transnational medical industries in India, China, Mongolia, and Bhutan.

Recent publications explore pharmaceutical production in Tibetan medicine, postcolonial critiques of global health systems, and ethnographies of traditional medical practices. Awards include an ERC Starting Grant (RATIMED, 2014-19) and a Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellowship (2011).

• Leadership: Acting Director (2019-2023) and Deputy Director at ISA.
• Teaching: Regular instructor at the University of Vienna.
• Collaborations: Worked on projects like Integrating Traditional Medicine (FWF, 2021-24) and Traditional Mongolian Veterinary Medicine (EPU 2022).