Anna Kirkland, the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan, was appointed director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender. Since 2014, she has been serving as the institute’s associate director.
Established in 1995, the Institute for Research on Women & Gender is an interdisciplinary unit of the University of Michigan Office of Research. The Institute is interdisciplinary and inclusive of the creative and performing arts as well as the humanities, social sciences, and the sciences.
In accepting the appointment, Professor Kirkland stated that “I am thrilled to work with researchers from around the campus to promote all the amazing scholarship on women, gender, and sexuality that is happening at Michigan as well as fund and grow new ideas from faculty who have not yet worked with us.”
Dr. Kirkland joined the faculty at the university in 2004. She was promoted to associate professor in 2010 and was named to her endowed chair in 2015. Professor Kirkland is the author of Vaccine Court: The Law and Politics of Injury (New York University Press, 2016) and Fat Rights: Dilemmas of Difference and Personhood (New York University Press, 2008).
Professor Kirkland is a graduate of Davidson College in North Carolina, where she majored in philosophy. She holds a master’s degree in government and foreign affairs from the University of Virginia. Dr. Kirkland earned a juris doctorate and a Ph.D. in jurisprudence and social policy from the University of California, Berkeley.