Anthropologist and MIT Associate Professor Amy Moran-Thomas studies medical technologies and how they fail to reach some communities. “What anthropology has to offer the world, and other knowledge systems, is the insights of people that might be missing from many accounts,” she says.

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MIT anthropologist Amy Moran-Thomas studies how medical technologies fail underserved communities. Her work spans diabetes care in Belize, pulse oximeter racial bias (which she helped bring to light during COVID-19, leading to FDA recommendations), and the chronic health effects of energy extraction in Pennsylvania. She co-teaches a course on the social design of medical devices, leads the 'Sugar Atlas' project mapping diabetes in the Caribbean, and is developing low-cost seismic sensors for communities affected by industrial activity. Her core argument is that patient and community perspectives — not just engineering or clinical ones — must drive medical technology design and policy.

Bridging medical realities in the study of technology and health