- Assistant Professor
Biography
Education
- PhD, Washington University in St. Louis
- MA, The University of Chicago
Research
I am a cultural and medical anthropologist who focuses on infectious disease, healthcare institutions, and public health systems. I am interested in how infectious disease expertise shapes responses to emerging microbial threats, particularly the everyday practices through which physicians and other healthcare professionals make decisions about diagnosis, antibiotic prescribing, and infection prevention. My research draws on ethnographic approaches to examine how institutions define and manage risk and how healthcare experts negotiate competing moral, organizational, and scientific demands.
My research interests include antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial stewardship, hospital ethnography and healthcare organizational culture, disease surveillance and public health infrastructures, the anthropology of biomedicine, Science and Technology Studies (STS), and the cultural dimensions of infectious disease and global health. I am particularly interested in how microbes become sociopolitical problems and how systems of disease control are shaped by the social worlds in which they operate.
If you are interested in applying to work with me, please email me and we can set up a chat!
Courses
- ANTH 203: Global Cultural Diversity
- ANTH 405: Medical Anthropology
Selected Publications
Acts of Resistance: Antibiotic Use and Prescribing Culture in the United States. Vanderbilt University Press (2026).- Rynkiewich, Katharina, and Robin L.P. Jump. 2025. “Stewardship recommendations at your fingertips: a smartphone application for hospital-based antibiotic decision-making.” Clinical Microbiology and Infection.
- Rynkiewich, Katharina, Sarin Gole, Sarah Won, and David N. Schwartz. 2023. “Cultures of antibiotic prescribing in medical intensive care.” Social Science & Medicine.
- Rynkiewich, Katharina. 2022. “Antimicrobial Prescribing Matters: The Irreconcilability in Moral Ranking Systems.” Anthropology & Medicine.
- Rynkiewich, Katharina, David Schwartz, Sarah Won, and Bradley Stoner. 2020. “Antibiotic decision making in surgical intensive care—a qualitative analysis.” Journal of Hospital Infection.