Moran Levy
PhD Student, Columbia University
Moran Levy is a Doctoral Candidate at the Department of Sociology at Columbia University and a fellow with the working group on Precision Medicine: Ethics, Politics and Culture.
Moran’s research focuses on classification of patients and diseases. She examines the role of social institutions in shaping biomedical classification as well the social consequences of diagnostic practices. Her dissertation focuses on cancer clinical trials conducted between 1950-1990 and explores how cancer diagnoses changed as different groups of experts brought into research and into healthcare new, and often conflicting approaches to classifications. She then investigates the implication of such transformation for patients and their effect on health inequalities. As part of the Precision Medicine group, Moran examines these questions in the context of cancer genetics. The introduction of genetics into cancer medicine creates new, increasingly narrow, cancer diagnoses. Moran’s research aims to explore the social consequences of the splitting up of diagnoses; how do new genetic classification map onto and interact with existing social and clinical categories? How might the specification of diagnoses affect patient mobilization and the inclusion/exclusion of patients from diverse social groups in cancer research?
Working Group Affiliation