Karen Gainer Sirota is a CELF Research Associate and Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles. She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology (2006, University of California, Los Angeles) and during the course of her UCLA graduate studies was a UCLA/Sloan Graduate Student Fellow (2001-2004), Edwin J. Pauley Fellow (2000-2005), and UCLA Dissertation Fellow (2005-2006). Sirota's doctoral dissertation, Co-Constituting Normativity and Difference: Family Discourse, Affect, and Intimacy in the Everyday Lives of Children Diagnosed with Autism and Asperger's Syndrome, examines relational processes involved in the social constitution of normativity and difference, along with the culturally valued skills and dispositions that undergird these morally based distinctions, illumining everyday explanatory models in action and exploring not simply the vulnerabilities but also the social competencies of children with autism. Sirota's anthropological research with children and families draws upon her related professional background in the fields of social work and education. Ongoing research foci include sociocultural dimensions of child and family health and well-being, cultural models of affect and intimacy, and children's views/participation vis-à-vis working family life.

B.A., Psychology, University of California, Berkeley
Teaching Certification, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley
M.S.W., Shirley M. Ehrenkranz School of Social Work, New York University
M.A., Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles
Ph.D., Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles