51Âþ»­

Sara Bamdad is a sociologist with an interest in researching religion (Islam) and sexual and reproductive health/justice topics, in particular assisted reproductive technologies. She is interested in conducting research using both qualitative (ethnographic) and quantitative methods and in the geographic region of Middle-East.

Her book proposal for a monograph entitled 'Mixed blessings of IVF: Everyday practices of assisted conception in Iran' is currently under review by Emerald Publishing, Emerald Studies in Reproduction, Culture and Society.

Prior to joining 51Âþ»­, she has held two post-doctoral positions; the first one was funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) at the University of Kent on attitudes towards abortion in South Africa and the second one was funded by the Wellcome Trust (seed grant) at University of Liverpool on the use of Assisted Reproductive Technologies in Low- and Middle-income countries. Sara's PhD was awarded by the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick in Oct 2019.

Centre for Reproduction Research (CRR)

• Bamdad, S., Finaughty, D. and Johns, S. (2022) Grey Areas’: Ethical challenges posed by social media-enabled recruitment and online data collection in cross-border, social science research, Journal of Research Ethics, Vol. 18, issue 1, pp. 24-38. doi:10.1177/17470161211045557
• Ahmadi, A. and Bamdad, S. (2017) Assisted Reproductive Technologies and the Iranian community attitude towards infertility, Human Fertility, Vol. 20, issue 3, pp. 204-211. Available at:

• Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs)
• (Islamic) bioethics
• gender politics and feminism
• sexual and reproductive health and justice
• mixed research methods
• Middle-East

Research Methods (Qualitative and Quantitative)

• PhD, University of Warwick
• MA Demography, Tehran Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Campus
• BSc Statistics, Shiraz University 

Researching Global Health (HEST5102)

• Coventry City of Culture Funding, The University of Warwick, Nov 2019-July 2020
• IAS Early Career Fellowship, University of Warwick, April 2019 – March 2020
• Funds for Women Graduates (fFWG), 2017-18 (Main Grant)
• Departmental Bursary, Sociology Department, University of Warwick, 2017

• Centre for the Studies of Women and gender (CSWG) seminar series, The University of Warwick, UK- Oct 2019: Negotiated numbers: communication of uncertainty and risk in the everyday practice of reproductive technologies in Iran.
• Nordic Science and Technology Studies Conference, Tampere University, Finland – June 2019: Care as method of inquiry in an ethnography of an infertility treatment clinic in Iran
• BSA Human Reproduction Study Group Annual Conference, UK – 2018: Whose egg? Whose uterus? Egg donation in the absence of regulations in Iran
• IUAES Commission in the Middle East, Krakow, Poland- 2017: Physical boundaries and beyond: Spatial, Social and Embodied in an infertility treatment clinic in Iran
• Women Rights Research Seminars, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, UK- 2015: Wider families initially feel pity for you but later expect you to give birth to a baby” - A gendered analysis of the motivations of women seeking fertility treatment in Iran