Affiliated Scholars

Diane Beeson
Affiliated Scholar

Diane Beeson is chair of the Department of Sociology and Social Services at California State University, East Bay. She received her B.A. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, San Francisco, where she specialized in medical sociology. She was a Pew post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco's Institute for Health Policy Studies from 1985-1987. Her main research interest for nearly three decades has been the social challenges of new reproductive technologies. For much of this time she was affiliated with UC Berkeley's Institute for the Study of Social Change researching social implications of genetic testing. In 1996 and 1997 she was a visiting scholar at Stanford University's Center for Genomics, Ethics and Society. She has served as a consultant on projects related to genetic testing for numerous organizations, including the National Society of Genetic Counselors, National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Department of Energy. She has served on peer review committees for the National Human Genome Research Institute and has authored numerous articles in professional journals and anthologies.