Recent Lab Publications

Highlighted publications

Pape, M., Miyagi, M., Ritz, S. A., Boulicault, M., Richardson, S. S., & Maney, D. L. (2024). Sex contextualism in laboratory research: Enhancing rigor and precision in the study of sex-related variables. Cell, 187(6), 1316–1326. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2024.02.008

Borsa, A., Miyagi, M., Ichikawa, K., De Jesus, K., Jillson, K., Boulicault, M., Richardson, S.S. “The New Genetics of Sexuality.” GLQ (2024) 30 (1): 119-140

Lee, K.M.N., Rushovich, T., Gompers, A., Boulicault, M., Worthington, S., Lockhart, J., Richardson, S.S. “A Gender Hypothesis of sex disparities in adverse drug events.” Social Science & Medicine, 339. (2023).

Rushovich, T., Gompers, A., Lockhart, J.W., Omidiran, I., Worthington, S., Richardson, S.S., and Lee, K.M.N. “Adverse Drug Events by Sex After Adjusting for Baseline Rates of Drug Use.” JAMA Network Open (2023).

Zhao, H., DiMarco, M., Ichikawa, K., Boulicault, M., Perret, M., Jillson, K., Fair, A., DeJesus, K.D., and Richardson, S.S. “Making a ‘sex-difference fact’: Ambien dosing at the interface of policy, regulation, women’s health, and biology.” Social Studies of Science (2023).

Bruch, J.D. and Richardson, S.S. “Women's Health, Inc.” The Lancet 401, no. 10384 (2023): 1258-1259

Sudai, M., Borsa, A., Ichikawa, K., Shattuck-Heidorn, H., Zhao, H., and Richardson, S.S. Law, policy, biology, and sex: Critical issues for researchers. (2022 May 20). Science 376 (6595).

DiMarco, M., Zhao, H., Boulicault, M., Richardson S.S. Why “Sex as a Biological Variable” conflicts with precision medicine initiatives. (2022 April 19). Cell Reports Medicine, (3)4.

Danielsen, A.C., Lee, K.M.N., Boulicault, M., Rushovich, T., Gompers, A., Tarrant, A., Reiches, M., Shattuck-Heidorn, H., Miratrix, L.W, Richardson, S.S. Sex disparities in COVID-19 outcomes in the United States: Quantifying and contextualizing variation. Social Science & Medicine, 294. 2022.

Gompers, A., Bruch, J.D., and Richardson, S.S. Are COVID-19 Case Fatality Rates a Reliable Measure of Sex Disparities? (2021, November 26). Women’s Health Issues.

Shattuck-Heidorn, H., Danielsen, A.C., Gompers, A., Bruch, J.D., Zhao, H., Boulicault, M., Marsella, J., and Richardson, S.S. A finding of sex similarities rather than differences in COVID-19 outcomes. (2021, Sept. 22). Nature.

Borsa, A. and Bruch, J.D. Prevalence and performance of private equity-affiliated fertility practices in the United States. (2021, Sept. 15). Fertility and Sterility.

Boulicault, M., Perret, M., Galka, J., Borsa, A., Gompers, A., Reiches, M. & Richardson, S.S. The future of sperm: a biovariability framework for understanding global sperm count trends. (2021, May 10). Human Fertility. DOI: 10.1080/14647273.2021.1917778

Perret, M., Jillson, K., Danielsen, A.C., Trinh, M., Zubizarreta, Z., DuBois, Z.L. COVID-19 Data on Trans and Gender-Expansive People, Stat! (2021, May 12). Health Affairs Blog.

Rushovich, T., Boulicault, M., Chen, J., Danielsen, A.C., Tarrant, A., Richardson, S.S, & Shattuck-Heidorn, H. Sex Disparities in COVID-19 Mortality Vary Across US Racial Groups. (2021, April 5). Journal of General Internal Medicine. (see this pdf if you hit a paywall)

Bruch, J. D., Borsa, A., Song, Z., et al. Expansion of Private Equity Involvement in Women’s Health Care. (2020, August 24). JAMA Internal Medicine.

Boulicault, M., Danielsen, A. C., Bruch, J., Tarrant, A., Borsa, A., & Richardson, S. Socially Relevant Variables In US State COVID-19 Surveillance Reporting: A Report Card. (2020, July 14). Health Affairs Blog.

Richardson, S. S., Reiches, M. W., Brunch, J., Boulicault, M., Noll, N. E., & Shattuck-Heidorn, H. Is There a Gender-Equality Paradox in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM)? Commentary on the Study by Stoet and Geary (2018). (2020, February 11). Psychological Science, 31(3), 338–341.

more publications

Ichikawa, K., DiMarco, M., DeJesus, K.D. “The risks of sex-based drug dosing recommendations.” Vox. (2023 Aug 15)

Boulicault, M., Gompers, A., Lee, K.M.N., & Shattuck-Heidorn, H. A Feminist Approach to Analyzing Sex Disparities in COVID-19 Outcomes. (2022 March). International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics. https://doi.org/10.3138/ijfab-15.1.29

Zhao, H. and Perret, M. The Search for Gay Genes: Should Queer People Support It? (2021, Nov. 14). Ms. Magazine.

Boulicault, M. and Reiches M. Falling sperm counts aren’t as alarming as they sound. (2021, June 7). The Guardian.

Borsa, A., Boulicault, M., Reiches, M., & Richardson, S.S. The Doomsday Sperm Theory Embraced by the Far Right. (2021, May 14). Slate.

Rushovich, T. and Richardson, S. S. The intersection of Black women, COVID, and death rates. (2021, April 5). Boston Globe. (see this link if you hit a paywall)

Borsa, A., Bruch, J.D., & Richardson, S.S. When private equity firms invest in women’s health clinics, who benefits? (2020, Sept. 14). STAT.

Shattuck-Heidorn, H., Reiches, M. W., & Richardson, S. S. What’s Really Behind the Gender Gap in Covid-19 Deaths? (2020, June 4). The New York Times.

Reiches, M., & Richardson, S. S. We Dug Into Data to Disprove a Myth About Women in STEM. (2020, February 11) Slate.

Richardson, R,. Borsa, A., Boulicault, M., Galka, J., Ghosh, N., Gompers, A., Noll, N., Perret, M., Reiches, M., Becerra, J., Shattuck-Heidorn, H., Vitti, J., Weir, B., & Zhao, H. Genome Studies Must Account for History. (2019, December 20). Science 366 (6472): 1461.

Shattuck-Heidorn, H., & Richardson, S. S. Sex/Gender and the Biosocial Turn. (2019, March 21). The Scholar and Feminist Online, Spring.

Shattuck-Heidorn, H., & Richardson, S. S. Focusing on differences between the sexes is leading medical researchers astray. (2019, May 30) Washington Post.

Richardson, S. S. Transphobia, Cloaked in Science. (2018, November 21). In Los Angeles Review of Books.

Noteworthy Lab Member Publications

Richardson, S., (2022) “Sex Contextualism”, Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology 14: 2. doi: https://doi.org/10.3998/ptpbio.2096

Richardson, S. S. (2021). The Maternal Imprint: The Contested Science of Maternal-Fetal Effects. University of Chicago Press.

Sudai, M. (2021). ‘A woman and now a man’: The legitimation of sex-assignment surgery in the United States (1849–1886). Social Studies of Science.

DuBois, L. Z., and Shattuck-Heidorn, H. (2021). “Challenging the binary: Gender/sex and the bio-logics of normalcy.” American Journal of Human Biology. vol. 33,5: e23623. doi:10.1002/ajhb.23623

Eliot, L. & Richardson, S. S. (2016). Sex in Context: Limitations of Animal Studies for Addressing Human Sex/Gender Neurobehavioral Health Disparities. Journal of Neuroscience, 36(47), 11823–11830.

Richardson, S. S., Reiches, M., Shattuck-Heidorn, H., Labonte, M. L., & Consoli, T. (2015). Opinion: focus on preclinical sex differences will not address women’s and men’s health disparities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(44), 13419–13420.

Richardson, S. S. (2015). Is the New NIH Policy Good For Women? Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, and Technoscience, 1.

Richardson, S. S. (2014). Y All the Hype? A study about sexual similarity gets framed as a major new finding of sex difference. Slate.

Richardson, S. S. (2013). Sex Itself: The Search for Male and Female in the Human Genome. University of Chicago Press.

Winner of the 2019 Catharine Stimpson Prize for Outstanding Feminist Scholarship

Reiches, M. (2019). Reproductive Justice and the History of Prenatal Supplementation: Ethics, Birth Spacing, and the “Priority Infant” Model in The Gambia. SIGNS: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 45(1).

Must Read Blog Posts

Sex Contextualist approaches

GenderSci Lab. Sex Contextualism: Teaching Slidedeck by Harvard University’s GenderSci Lab. (April 2022) Harvard GenderSci Lab.

BIOLOGICAL SEX IN LAW & POLICY

Sudai, M. (2020, June 24). Bostock, the HHS Rule, and Legal Reliance on Biological Claims about Sex: An Analysis from the GenderSci Lab. Harvard GenderSci Lab.

Gender equality paradox

Noll, N. (2020, February 17). Gender Equality ≠ Gender Neutrality: When a Paradox is Not So Paradoxical, After All. Harvard GenderSci Lab.

GENDER/SEX & ALZHEIMERS

Reiches, M., Boulicault, M., Bruch, J., Noll, N., Shattuck-Heidorn, H., Weir, B., & Richardson, S. (2018, October 10). Theory Matters: Sex, Gender, and Alzheimer’s Disease. Harvard GenderSci Lab.

the future of sperm and men’s health

Reiches, M., Boulicault, M., and Richardson S.S. (2021, May 4). Sperm Count Biovariation: And Introduction and Primer. Harvard GenderSci Lab.

gender/sex & covid-19

Danielsen, A.C. and Tarrant, M. (19 Jan. 2022). New Paper: COVID-19 sex disparities differ dramatically across U.S. states and over time, pointing to social factors. Harvard GenderSci Lab.

Danielsen, A. C., & Noll, N. (2020, June 24). Communicating about COVID-19 and Sex Disparities: A Guide for Media, Scientists, Public Health Officials, and Educators. Harvard GenderSci Lab.

gwas study of same-sex sexuality

Shattuck-Heidorn, H., Boulicault, M., & Sudai, M. (2019, December 19). Ethical Oversight of GWAS Studies: Are We Doing Enough to Protect Communities? Harvard GenderSci Lab.

Lab Featured in the Press

The New York Times

Azeen Ghorayshi. (2022, January 19). Why Are Men More Likely to Die of Covid? It’s Complicated. The New York Times.

Rachel E. Gross. (2021, June 4). The Sperm-Count ‘Crisis’ Doesn’t Add Up. The New York Times.

Slate

Julia Craven. (2021, April 6). The Overlooked Demographics of COVID. Slate.

inside higher ed

Colleen Flaherty. (2020, Feb 14) STEM’s Ongoing Sex-Difference Debate. Inside Higher Ed.

HARVARD T.H. CHAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH NEWS

Karen Feldscher. (2020) More men than women are dying from COVID-19. Why? Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

BUZZFEED

Stephanie M. Lee. (2020, Feb 13). A Controversial Study Claimed To Explain Why Women Don’t Go Into Science And Tech. It just got a 1,113-Word Correction. BuzzFeed

DISCOVER MAGAZINE

Allison Whitten. (2020, Jul 23). Untangling Gender and Sex in Humans: Scholars reveal how sex and gender differ, where they overlap and why science needs to catch up to lived experiences. Discover Magazine.

The 19th

Mariel Padilla. (2021, Sept. 22). Why are more men dying from COVID? It’s a complicated story of nature vs. nurture, researchers say. The 19th.

DAILY BEAST

Emily Shugerman. (2020, Aug 24). Private Equity Wants to Get Up in Your Lady Parts. Daily Beast.