Dr. Alana Helberg-Proctor is an Assistant Professor in the Health, Care and the Body programme group at the UvA Department of Anthropology. In her work, she focuses on diversity and inequality in healthcare and medical science. She investigates how 'race' and 'ethnicity' appear in biomedical research, health policy, and healthcare in the Netherlands and Europe. More specifically, she explores how scientific and technological practices in care and medicine are intertwined with society, politics, cultural values, and context. In 2021 she was awarded the Marie Curie Sklodowska research grant (2021-2022). 

Alana started her academic career and education at The New School in New York City, where she obtained her BA and MA. Upon completing her MSc and Ph.D. at Maastricht University in 2017, she was appointed as an Assistant Professor at Maastricht University in the Department of Health, Ethics, and Society. In addition, she was a Post-doc in the RaceFaceID project and guest lecturer at the University of Amsterdam Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences. In 2021 she was awarded the Marie Curie Sklodowska Fellowship research grant, with which she was a Post-doc in the Life Sciences & Society Lab at KU Leuven in Belgium (Sep 2021-Dec. 2022). 

Expertise and research fields

• Science and Technology Studies
• Critical Race and Ethnicity Studies 
• Anthropology of Medicine
• Postcolonial Science Studies
• Global Health

Keywords: race; racism; medicine; diversity and inclusion in health; diagnostics; medical guidelines; medical technologies; health policy; provider bias; decolonizing medicine; categories; Europe

Relevant links

• Research group Health Care and the Body

Research methods

• Ethnography
• Qualitative document analysis
• Interpretive policy analysis
• Participatory action research

Current research projects

Currently, Alana is conducting two research projects. Firstly, she is conducting the first comparative study between European countries into the use of 'race-based’ diagnostics in health care. Secondly, with a group of dermatologists, Alana is conducting participatory action research on the lack of skin-colour diversity in the field of dermatology in the Netherlands.

Research grants and honours

• 2021 European Commission Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (€267,480.00)
• 2017 SWOL/Universiteitsfonds Limburg Subsidie (subsidy to organise a 1-day symposium)
• 2012 UM CAPHRI Philipsen Award (category: Best Scientific Publication) 
• 2010 Tuition Fellowship, NiNsee Summer School on Black Europe 
• 2009 4S Society for Social Studies of Science Annual Meeting Travel Award 
• 2008 Maastricht University Kootstra pre-PhD Fellowship 
• 2006 The New School for Social Research Tuition Scholarship 
• 2006 Eugene Lang College Alumni Coalition Award 
• 2005 Fellowship, The New School Democracy and Diversity Graduate Institute: Transregional Centre for Democratic Studies
• 2003 Tishman Environmental Merit Scholarship 
• 2002 Eugene Lang College Tuition Scholarship (four-year period, 2002 – 2006)

Current cooperation with organisations and/or persons

• ZonMw-commissielid Dementie (expertise Diversiteit en Inclusie)

Bachelor's in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology courses:

• Anthropologies of Black Europe
• Race and Physical Anthropology 
• Power & Politics

Master's in Cultural and Social Anthropology courses:

• Decolonial Praxis: Racialized and Gendered Bodies
• Thesis supervision

Research Master's Social Sciences course:

• Race, Gender, and Postcolonial STS
• Thesis supervision

Master’s in Medical Anthropology and Sociology:

• Materialities in Practice
• Thesis supervision

PhD supervision

• PhD co-supervisor of ethnographic study on living with and caring for sickle cell disease (PhD-candidate Clément Dréano, promotor Prof.dr. Amade M’charek)