Dr. Erica van der Sijpt is a researcher at AIGHD, currently involved in the development of a research project on self-care practices and interventions in the domain of sexual and reproductive health. Before she joined AIGHD, she conducted anthropological research on reproductive health, uncertainties, and decision-making. In her PhD project (2006-2011), she looked at how Cameroonian women navigate the ambiguities around different forms of reproductive loss. In her post-doctoral studies (2012-2018), she examined the insecurities arising around different fertility events in the lives of Romanian women. Her research findings have been published in a monograph (Wasted Wombs: Navigating Reproductive Interruptions – Vanderbilt University Press, 2018) and in various medical anthropological journals.

Over the last 15 years, Erica has also created and taught different medical anthropological and methodological courses at the University of Amsterdam, the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), the Netherlands School of Public and Occupational Health (NSPOH), and the GGD Academy in the Netherlands, as well as the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK, the University of Bucharest in Romania, and BRAC University in Bangladesh.