Florence Paterson is a sociologist and research engineer at the Centre for Social Innovation. Her main areas of interest are the sociology and anthropology of medicine and disability. She has conducted research on the ethics and distributive justice in action in the field of organ transplantation. She is interested in the collective mobilization of people concerned with disability and illness, particularly in the historical dimension of the associative movement and the growing involvement of patient organizations in scientific and technical activities.

 

She is currently participating in research developed by Madeleine Akrich and Vololona Rabeharisoa on the involvement of patient organizations in biomedical research and the governance of health issues. She is also involved, with Vololona Rabeharisoa, in a research project on the use of DNA in police investigations and criminal trials, as part of a research program focusing on the emergence of new public problems around the development of genomics.

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She was a founding member, and Associate editor from 2007 to 2017, of Alter-European Journal of Disability Research.