Liza Buchbinder (VA/UCLA Scholar) is an internal medicine physician from Los Angeles, California. She went to Barnard College for undergraduate and majored in biology. After college, she went to Togo, West Africa, and did the Peace Corps for two years prior to starting medical school at UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program. During medical training, she completed a PhD in medical anthropology from UC Berkeley and UCSF. Her dissertation focused on the limits of naming violence against adolescent domestic servants through the rights discourse on child trafficking and called for an alternative framework to address child labor exploitation in West Africa. She completed her internal medicine residence at UCLA Oliveview.

Career Interests: She plans a career as an academic internist and anthropologist within the field of social medicine, providing care to vulnerable and underserved populations, including a combination of ethnographic research, medical education, and advocacy.

Research Interests: Dr. Buchbinder’s research interests include human trafficking within the United States and the disparate ways in which trafficking victims interface directly and indirectly with local hospitals, clinics, and the correctional health facilities. She is also interested in the greying California prison population and the experiences of released elderly prisoners as they navigate the safety net health system to manage chronic illnesses, as well as the ways in which compassionate release programs reflect on contemporary attitudes towards aging, criminality, and public safety.