About

Kathryn Clancy is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at Illinois College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. She holds a BA cum laude from Harvard University in Biological Anthropology and Women's Studies, an MPhil, and a PhD in Anthropology from Yale University. Her research focuses on reproductive health, menstrual cycle impacts, and gender and sex in health, with a particular emphasis on understanding menstrual experiences and reproductive functions through transdisciplinary approaches. Clancy has received numerous awards and honors for her contributions to science and public engagement, including the 2025 Apex Award for Publication Excellence and the 2024 Outstanding Faculty Leadership Award at the University of Illinois. She has been recognized for her influence in science communication, her leadership in addressing sexual harassment in academia, and her work on gender equity in STEM fields. Her academic career includes teaching courses on human science, birth and postpartum experiences, primate life history evolution, and feminist science, alongside her active involvement in research projects and collaborations related to reproductive health, contraception, and menstrual cycle impacts.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Sociology
• Political Science
• Aesthetics
• Law
• Gender studies
• History
• Mathematics

Selected publications

• Intersecting Identities of Women in Engineering

  2020 · 8 citations

  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Sociology

  Mendenhall's research focuses on racial microaggressions in higher education. She examines how living in racially segregated neighborhoods with high levels of violence affects Black mothers' mental and physical health using qualitative, quantitative and genomic analysis. She uses

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Jennifer Amos

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  4 shared

• Carla D. Hunter

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  2 shared

• Kelly Cross

  Communications Technology Laboratory

  2 shared

• P. I. Imoukhuede

  University of Washington

  2 shared

• Ruby Mendenhall

  Illinois College

  2 shared

• Gabriel Burks

  Binghamton University

  1 shared

• Robin E. Bell

  Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

  1 shared

• Theodore Hodapp

  Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

  1 shared

Awards & honors

• Apex Award for Publication Excellence for “Biology is Not Bi…
• Outstanding Faculty Leadership Award, University of Illinois
• Center for Advanced Study Fellowship, University of Illinois
• Gender Equity Award, American Anthropology Association
• YWCA University of Illinois Women in STEM Award

Similar researchers at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

• Jiawei Hanh-146
• Maria T. Grosse Perdekamph-141
• Gan Zhangh-134
• Jeffrey S. Mooreh-130
• Shuming Nieh-128