Speaker: Ramina Sotoudeh

Institution: Department of Sociology, Yale University

Date: 14:00 BST, 16th July, 2025

Talk Title: Antenatal Selection: A novel approach for assessing the genetic and ecological drivers of who survives to birth

Abstract: A great deal of selection happens prior to birth, whereby many viable embryos do not make it to term. Antenatal selection is responsive to environmental factors and affects maternal and fetal health outcomes. Since male embryos tend to be more frail than their female counterparts, previous studies have used sex ratio at birth to establish that selection on the XY chromosomes exists prior to birth. However, the genetics of antenatal selection beyond the effects of XY chromosomes are not well understood. The challenge lies in the fact that many of the embryos which undergo selection are never observed. In this study we develop a novel approach to understanding the genetics of survival to term using within-family data. 

Bio: Ramina Sotoudeh is an Assistant Professor of Sociology with a secondary appointment in Statistics & Data Science. Ramina works on topics related to sociogenomics, culture, health and inequality. Her work in sociogenomics studies the complex interplay between genes and the social environment. Her work in the sociology of culture employs relational methods to understand the shared frameworks that underpin understandings of a wide range of topics including marriage, science, politics, and religion. Ramina’s work has appeared in the American Sociological Review, PNAS, Demography, Sociological Methods and Research, among others. Before joining Yale, Ramina was a postdoctoral fellow at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. She received her Ph.D. in 2021 from Princeton University.