Zeynep Gurtin

Dr Zeynep Gurtin is a Lecturer in Women’s Health at the Institute for Women’s Health at UCL, and holds an Affiliate Lectureship at the University of Cambridge Sociology Department. Zeynep is a is a sociologist of reproduction with research interests in the social, ethical, and relational issues surrounding assisted reproductive technologies, and contemporary trends in reproduction. Her current projects focus on egg freezing and single women’s fertility options; reproductive anxiety; and motherhood after 40. 

Before moving to UCL in September 2018, Zeynep spent two years as a Senior Research Associate at the London Women’s Clinic, working to create a social science research specialism within a clinical context, and focusing on the needs and experiences of single women visiting the fertility clinic. Prior to this, she was a Research Associate with Professor Sarah Franklin at the Reproductive Sociology Research Group (ReproSoc), University of Cambridge, 2012-2016; and a Research Fellow with Professor Susan Golombok at the Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge 2010-2012. Zeynep completed her PhD at Cambridge; her thesis “The ART of Making Babies", provides an analysis of the cultural constructions of in vitro fertilization (IVF) in Turkey, combining archival analysis or media and regulatory materials with ethnographic research and in-depth interviews with IVF patients and practitioners. Zeynep was also Founding Convener of the Cambridge Interdisciplinary Reproduction Group (CIRF), a multi-disciplinary research group which was based at CRASSH from 2006-2016.

Zeynep lectures on gender studies, sociology of reproduction, medical sociology, women’s health, ethics of assisted reproduction, and qualitative research methods; and supervises undergraduates and graduates on projects within these topics at both Cambridge and UCL. Zeynep’s work has been extensively covered in the media, including BBC News, the Guardian, the Independent, Sky News, Stylist Magazine, Glamour, Grazia.