The Maternal Imprint

Sarah Richardson, Professor of the History of Science and of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Harvard University
In conversation with Emily Oster, Professor of Economics, Brown University
At the turn of the twentieth century, any notion that a pregnant woman could alter her offspring’s physical and behavioral traits was dismissed as it was believed that a child’s fate was set by its genes and upbringing. Today, a wide body of interdisciplinary research argues that a woman’s experiences, behaviors, and physiology can have life-altering effects on offspring development. Drawing on her new book, The Maternal Imprint, (University of Chicago Press, 2021), leading gender and science scholar Sarah Richardson examined how our ideas about heredity and maternal-fetal effects have evolved over the last fifty years. A conversation with economist and best-selling author Emily Oster followed.
About the Speakers
Sarah S. Richardson is professor of the history of science and of studies of women, gender, and sexuality at Harvard University. She directs the Harvard GenderSci Lab.
Emily Oster is a Professor of Economics at Brown University and the author of Expecting Better, Cribsheet, and The Family Firm. Oster’s books analyze the data behind choices in pregnancy and parenting. She holds a PhD in Economics from Harvard. Prior to being at Brown she was on the faculty at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.