Robbin Jeffries Hein

PhD Sociology, UCLA

Robbin Jeffries Hein is an Assistant Project Scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a sociologist of science, medicine and technology. Dr. Jeffries Hein specializes in feminist social science research on the environmental and reproductive politics of health, developmental models of health and disease, and environmental epigenetics. She is also a member of the International Biosocial Birth Cohort Research (BBCR) Network.

Recent Publications:

Lappé, Martine, Fionna Fahey, and Robbin Jeffries Hein. 2022. “Epigenomic Stories: Evidence of Harm and the Social Justice Promises and Perils of Environmental Epigenetics.” Science, Technology, & Human Values. https://doi.org/10.1177/01622439221137028.

• All authors contributed equally to the writing of this manuscript.

Lappé, Martine, and Robbin Jeffries Hein. 2020. “Human Placenta, Birth Cohorts, and the Production of Epigenetic Knowledge.” Somatosphere http://somatosphere.net/2020/placenta-epigenetics-knowledge.html/.

Lappé, Martine, and Robbin Jeffries Hein. 2021. “You Are What Your Mother Endured: Intergenerational Epigenetics, Early Caregiving, and the Temporal Embedding of Adversity.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 35(4):458–75. doi: 10.1111/maq.12683.

• 2021 Polgar Prize Honorable Mention for Most Outstanding Article in Medical Anthropology Quarterly, awarded by the Society for Medical Anthropology

Lappé, Martine, and Robbin Jeffries Hein. 2022. “The Temporal Politics of Placenta Epigenetics: Bodies, Environments and Time.” Body & Society. doi: 10.1177/1357034X211068883.

Lappé, Martine, Robbin Jeffries Hein, and Hannah Landecker. 2019. “Environmental Politics of Reproduction.” Annual Review of Anthropology 48(1):133–50. doi: 10.1146/annurev-anthro-102218-011346.

Under Revision:

Jeffries Hein, R., Lappé, M., Fahey, F. F. (2023) “Molecular Vestiges of Early Life: Children’s Health and the Persistent Promise of Biomarkers in Behavioral Epigenetics.”