Prof. Eileen moyer

Eileen Moyer is Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. Moreover, Moyer is Professor of Anthropology of Ecology, Health and Climate Change at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science (AISSR), University of Amsterdam and the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development (AIGHD). As a medical anthropologist, Moyer’s research is driven by her fascination with understanding the dynamic ways that human societies respond to and are shaped by complex socio-technical problems, including viral pandemics and ecological collapse. She studies how infectious disease and ecological collapse are affecting urban life, particularly in the global South, and is specifically interested in the relationship between climate change, environmental degradation and health. Moyer has conducted research on HIV/AIDS for more than twenty years and is considered an international expert in the field. Her understanding of the HIV pandemic as situated in interrelated biological, ecological, and social worlds has shaped her perspective on emerging infectious disease crises and climate change. She links her work on human-viral relations to foundational questions about the entwinement of nature and culture, including anthropological concerns such as kinship, multispecies relations, evolution, human origins, and the foundations of life itself.

Moyer’s research has been continuously supported by various funding agencies, including the ERC, NWO/WOTRO, the National Institutes of Health (USA), and national research foundations in Switzerland, Sweden, and South Africa. She recently wrapped up her research as PI of the ERC Consolidator Grant, Becoming Men (2015-2021), which examined how HIV changed norms and practices related to gender, sexuality and public health in Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania. Together with Lenore Manderson, she is currently PI of the NWO/NRF funded Eco-Imagining (2022-2026) project, which employs citizen science to study sustainability initiatives in South Africa

With nearly 100 publications, Moyer is committed to interdisciplinary dialogue and influencing policy debates. Her research has been published in anthropological, medical, public health, health policy, urban and media studies journals. In 2015, Moyer co-founded the journal Medicine Anthropology Theory, which she co-edited through 2019. She remains on the advisory board of this open-access journal, which promotes cross-disciplinary dialogue among social scientists, public health specialists, and medical professionals.