Stephan Kloos

Stephan Kloos is a Professor at the University of Vienna's Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology and Deputy Director of the Austrian Academy of Sciences' Institute for Social Anthropology. He holds a PhD from the Universities of California, San Francisco, and Berkeley (2010) and a Habilitation from the University of Vienna (2022). His research focuses on Tibetan medicine, Asian health industries, and postcolonial science, with a particular emphasis on exile communities, medical heritage, and pharmaceutical assemblages.

Key research areas include the transnational Sowa Rigpa industry, humanitarianism from below, and the political dimensions of Tibetan medical knowledge. Kloos has led major international projects, including an ERC Starting Grant (2014–2019), and published extensively in journals like Current Anthropology and Medical Anthropology. His work bridges medical anthropology, political economy, and STS, addressing global health, cultural preservation, and economic transformations in Asia.

He has served as Acting Director of the Institute for Social Anthropology (2019–2023) and regularly teaches at the University of Vienna. His current research explores Tibetan engagements with nationalism and capitalism through the lens of medicine's industrialization.