Overview

Dr. Pia Vuolanto is a sociologist and science and technology studies (STS) scholar.

As a team member in the ethnographic Templeton Religion Trust pilot project Science and religion in northern Europe, her studies focus on the lived science-religion interface. She is interested in the active negotiation of medical doctors and researchers with both the scientific worldview and other knowledge and belief systems. She is currently working on a literature review of studies in science and religion. In addition, Vuolanto is researching controversies over legitimate knowledge and the processes through which heterodox knowledge enters the academic field. Her active research interests include criticism of biomedicine related to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and vaccine hesitance; CAM knowledge production especially in anthroposophic medicine; academisation of nursing; and gendered boundary work within the scepticisim movement. She has edited the volume Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Knowledge Production and Social Transformation (Palgrave 2018) with Caragh Brosnan and Jenny-Ann Brodin Danell and published in STS and health sociology journals. Vuolanto has a professional background as a nurse.