I’m a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Central Florida (2008-present). I conducted my doctoral work in medical anthropology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and my postdoctoral work in public health at the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University.

I’m interested in reproductive health, rights, and policies in a variety of geopolitical settings, in particular in Europe and the United States.  My doctoral research was situated in Poland and is the subject of my monograph, The Politics of Morality: The Church, the State and Reproductive Rights in Postsocialist Poland published by Ohio University Press in 2015, and the Winner of the Adele E. Clarke Book Award in 2017.

During 2020-2021, I was the Principal Investigator on a WHO research study “Policy Implementation – Access to Safe Abortion Services in the Republic of Ireland,” which examined barriers and facilitators to policy implementation since January 2019.

During 2016-2022 I serve as a Senior Researcher examines the international phenomenon of cross-border travel for abortion care. This was a collaborative anthropology and epidemiology project led by Silvia De Zordo, PhD, at the University of Barcelona. Based on the pilot project we conducted in London in 2014-15, we are focusing on travel between and within several countries: the UK, Spain, France, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy – see our website for details. ​

In the United States, I am part of a collaboration with Lindsay Taliaferro, PhD, and colleagues at the UCF College of Medicine on research that examines barriers to receiving quality healthcare services for sexual minority youth, with a focus on LGBQ care for young adults, and the perceptions of pediatric and family medicine physicians and residents about their ability to provide quality care to LGBQ patients.

I am also interested in the developments around reproductive rights and policies in Malta, where recent changes show a growing feminist movement is gaining momentum. Although Malta is a rather small nation in terms of population, it is of great importance for the Council of Europe politics with the same voting rights as any other EU nation.

My research has been funded by several major funders, some of which include the World Health Organization, the European Research Council, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Fulbright Scholarship, the Wenner-Gren Foundation. The Brocher Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland, has been an important supporter of my work and publications on access to assisted reproductive technologies in Europe.

I’m also passionate about mentoring students in research, and have been recognized with several awards for this work.

Twitter @JoannaMishtal