Dr. Morgen is a Professor of Anthropology and the former Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Associate Dean of the Graduate School. Her research has long focused on the intersection of gender, race, class and public policy in the U.S., with a particular focus on health, social welfare and tax politics. Her current research explores the cultural politics of taxes in the U.S., including ethnographic research on anti-tax movements such as the Tea Party and on how tax-related Oregon ballot initiatives reflect and produce changing discourses about taxes, the State and the public sector.
Her most recent books are Stretched Thin: Poor Families, Welfare Work and Welfare Reform(coauthored with Joan Acker and Jill Weigt, Cornell University Press, 2010); Into Our Own Hands: The Women’s Health Movement in the U.S. 1969-1990 (Rutgers University Press, 2002), winner of the Eileen Basker Prize from the Society for Medical Anthropology, 2004; and Taxes are a Woman’s Issue (coauthored with Mimi Abramovitz, Feminist Press, 2006). She is also a co-editor of recent edited books, including Work, Welfare and Politics (with Joan Acker, Frances Fox Piven and Margaret Hallock, 2002) and Rethinking Security: Gender, Race, and Militarization (with Barbara Sutton and Julie Novkov, 2007).
She has received the Career Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Anthropology of the U.S from the Society for the Anthropology of North America, the Squeaky Wheel Award for Dedication to Achieving Greater Gender Parity for Women in Anthropology from the American Anthropological Association, and the Martin Luther King and Charles Johnson awards from the University of Oregon. She is past President of the Society for the Anthropology of Society for the Anthropology of North America, former President of the Association for Feminist Anthropology, and an appointed member of the American Anthropological Association Commission on Race and Racism.