Dr. Yael Assor

Medical, psychological
Economic anthropology
Intersections of anthropology and philosophy
Feminist epistemologies

Email: yaelassor@gmail.com
Personal website: Yael Assor

Current Projects

My current research examines the ethical assumptions underlying the notion of "medical effectiveness" in cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA), a central policy-making tool for determining healthcare funding allocation worldwide. While CEA aims to provide a standardized, value-free measurement of different health technologies, its calculation requires making various assumptions about what is "good health" and who should determine it. 

Curriculum Vitae 

Fellowships and Grants

• 2022-2024            Israel Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Grant (grant number 95/22)

• 2021-2022            Tel Aviv University Rector's Postdoctoral Fellowship

• 2020                       Phi Beta Kappa Alumni Association International Scholarship

• 2019-2020            Dissertation Year Fellowship, UCLA Graduate Division

• 2018                       Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies Graduate Student Research Fellowship

• 2017                       UCLA International Center Fieldwork Fellowship

• 2012                       Shaine Fellowship, Sociology and Anthropology Department, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Prizes

• 2022       Honorary mention, Max Gluckman Prize for best dissertation, Israeli Anthropological Association

• 2018       UCLA Department of Anthropology Summer Research Awar

• 2016       Graduate Summer Research Mentorship Award, Graduate Division, UCLA

• 2015       Lemelson/Society for Psychological Anthropology Pre-Dissertation Award, American Anthropological Association

• 2014       Ursula Mandel Award, UCLA

• 2013       Guggenheim award, Mandel Institute for Jewish Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Education

• Ph.D.     Anthropology, UCLA, 2014- December 18, 2020.
  Dissertation Title: "Objectivity as a Bureaucratic Virtue: The Lived Experience of Objectivity in an Israeli Medical Bureaucracy”
  Dissertation Committee: Dr. C. Jason Throop (chair, UCLA), Dr. Sherry B. Ortner (UCLA), Dr. Akhil Gupta (UCLA), Dr. Jarrett Zigon (UVA Anthropology)

• M.A.      Sociology and Anthropology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Summa Cum Laude, 2013

• B.A.        Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Cum Laude, 2009
  Major: Sociology- Anthropology, Psychology.

Publications 

Assor, Yael. " Bureaucratizing like a girl: Objectivity and the reinforcement of patriarchy at an Israeli government committee." Feminist Anthropology. Forthcoming.

Peer-reviewed articles

• Assor, Yael and Dan Greenberg. 2022. "Public legitimacy of Healthcare Resource Allocation Committees: Lessons Learnt from Assessing an Israeli Case." BMC Health Services Research, 22:737.  

• Assor, Yael.  2021. "Following Orders" as a Critique on Healthcare Allocation Committees: An Anthropological Perspective on the Role of Public Memory in Bioethical Legitimacy. Bioethics, 35:549-556.

• Assor, Yael. 2021. ’Objectivity’ as a Bureaucratic Virtue: Cultivating Unemotionality in an Israeli Medical Committee. American Ethnologist 48:1, 105-119.

• Yael Assor & Yehuda C. Goodman. 2020. Beyond Ethics: Professionalism and Social Belonging in Social Workers’ Moral Deliberations, Ethnos, 85:1, 168-187

Presentations 

INVITED TALKS     

• 2024 How Culture Shapes Healthcare Policymaking: Lessons from the Israeli Sal Committee and American Health Economists. Ramabam Childrens Hospital Plenary Talk.

• 2023 Experiencing Truth: On the role of suspicion in creating "good data."  Boston University Department of Anthropology.

• 2023 Objectivity on Trial: On the Epistemic Stature of the State in Administrative Courts. Co-presentation with Yael Cohen-Rimer. Edmond Safra and Lily Center for Ethics, Harvard University

• 2022 Sal Committee's Public Legitimacy: Assessment and Recommendations.  Keynote speech at ISPOR (The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research)-Israel Chaper annual conference.

• 2021 Bureaucratizing Like a Girl: How an Ethics of "Objectivity" Affects Patriarchal Organizations. Tel Aviv University Department of Sociology and Anthropology.

• 2021 Objectivity in medical policy-making: An Israeli case study of how ethical ideals shape healthcare. Azrieli Faculty of Medicine, Bar Ilan University, Israel

• 2021 How to Make "Objective" Knowledge? Program in Science and Technology Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Israel.

• 2020 Objectivity in the Making: On Objectivity as an Ideal and as a Practice at the Israeli Sal Committee. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

• 2020 Bureaucratic Virtue: “Objectivity” at the Israeli Sal Committee. Department of Anthropology, Haifa University, Israel.

• 2019 “We have No Room for Emotions”: On the Meaning of Objectivity at the Israeli Sal Committee. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Bar-Ilan University, Israel.

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS 

• 2022       Dilemmas in Feminist Fieldwork: A Roundtable Conversation, Israeli Anthropological Association Annual Conference

• 2021       Mooded Data. "Engagements with Anthropology of Morality" conference

• Department of Anthropology, University of Haifa. Zoom conference.

• 2021       Bureaucratizing Like a Girl. Society for Psychological Anthropology. Zoom conference

• 2019       Transgressing Hegemony: A Meditation on Pharmaceutical Corruption. American Anthropological Association Annual Conference, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

• 2019       Organizer, Round Table on Medical Anthropology’s Ethical Common-Sens. International Workshop in Medical Anthropology, Van Leer Institute and Ben-Gurion University, Israel

• 2019       Objectivity as Following Procedures: Conflicting Bureaucratic Legacies in a Bioethical Present. Bioethics and the Legacies of the Holocaust international symposium. Berlin, Germany.

• 2018       “Statistical Patient” vs. “Identifiable Patient”: The Object of Care in an Israeli Medical Bureaucracy as a site of Adaptation and Resistance. American Anthropological Association Annual Conference, San Jose, CA.

• 2018       Between Responsibility and Accountability: Problematizing Israeli Healthcare Policymaking. Association for Israel Studies Annual Conference

• 2017       Ethical visions, Moral subjects, and the everyday enactment of a medical bureaucracy. Society for Psychological Anthropology , New Orleans, LA.  

• 2016       Challenging Power through Moral Expectations: Patients Resisting Medical Policy-Making in Israel. American Anthropological Association Annual Conference , Minneapolis,, MN.

• 2016       Navigating Moral Dilemmas: How Social Workers Handle Moral Discourses of Care. Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Conference, Vancouver, Canada.