Diane Tober

Diane Tober is an Associate Professor at the University of Alabama, Department of Anthropology and Institute for Social Science Research. She is a cultural and medical anthropologist with a focus on gender and sexuality, the commodification of the body, science and technology studies, bioethics, and social and reproductive justice. She has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Iran, Spain, and the United States.

Her first book, Romancing the Sperm: Shifting Biopolitics and the Making of Modern Families (Rutgers Press, 2018), explores the intersections between the sperm banking industry, the men who provide sperm, and the single women and lesbian couples who use donor sperm to conceive a child. Tracing the changes in use of Assisted Reproductive Technologies from the 1990s to today, Romancing the Sperm investigates the role technology plays in the changing meanings of family.

Her second book, Eggonomics: The Global Market in Human Eggs and the Donors Who Supply Them (Routledge Press, 2024), examines the human consequences of turning people into products. Through clinical observation in the United States and Spain, interviews with hundreds of egg donors and professionals from around the world, and surveys with close to 1,000 egg donors, this book traces the emotional and physical journeys egg donors embark upon in the process of helping other people create the families of their dreams.

In addition to her research, she is also producer/director of the documentary film, The Perfect Donor, which is currently in post production. Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, The Social Science Research Council, The University of California, San Francisco, and American Institute for Iranian Studies, among others.