Yining Pan

Yining Pan

Arts & Sciences: Anthropology (PhD)

Yining is a Ph.D. student in sociocultural anthropology at WashU. She started as a sociology undergraduate student at Fudan University in Shanghai, but quickly found that she was more intrigued by anthropology, especially the intersection of medical anthropology, gender studies, and STS. Funded by the Fudan Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, she started her first academic project on a common endocrine disorder called polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Through a critical examination of medical literature both in Chinese and in English, she analyzed how certain bodily changes brought by PCOS became categorized as “masculine”, rather than being masculine in nature, thus engaging herself in a broader discussion of how sexual differences are produced and reproduced in scientific knowledge. Yining has a huge passion for theatre and cinema. She directed an original play and held several performance workshops during her undergraduate years. Lately, she has enjoyed dancing, including waacking and jazz heels.