Professor María Eugenia Olavarría Patiño is an ethnologist with a Ph.D. in Anthropological Sciences. Currently, Professor Olavarría studies the intersection between the notions of body and reproduction in the context of social inequalities. In particular, her research focuses on kinship relations mediated by human reproductive biotechnologies involving third parties, i.e. gamete and gestational capacity donors such as gestation by surrogacy or gestation for others and reproductive donation in general.
On two occasions, 2014 and 2019, she has held the Alfonso Reyes Chair of the Institut des Hautes Études de l'Amérique Latine of the Université Nouvelle Sorbonne-Paris 3 and in 2017 she received the recognition of Invited Researcher of the Programme Directeur d'Études Associés, Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme.

Her most recent book, La gestación para otros en México: parentesco, tecnología y poder (Mexico: GEDISA / UAM, 2018) won the Research Award and honorable mention of the Fray Bernardino de Sahagún Award.

Since 2015, she has been a national researcher, level III, and is currently developing the project Kinship in the mirror, focused on the meanings and relationships around the preservation and donation of gametes as well as the individuation of fertilized eggs.

She has written the following books: 2018. Olavarría, María Eugenia, Gestation for others in Mexico: kinship, technology and power (Mexico: GEDISA / UAM, 2018). 2012. Olavarría, María Eugenia, Lévi-Strauss, Mexico: UAM Cultura Universitaria, 224 p. 2009. Olavarría, María Eugenia, Cristina Aguilar and Érica Merino, El cuerpo flor. Etnografía de una noción yoeme, Miguel Ángel Porrúa / UAM, Colección Las ciencias sociales. Tercera década, 252 p., Mexico, PREMIO FRAY BERNARDINO DE SAHAGUN 2010 REVIEW by Jacques Galinier.
 
Among the collective books and dossiers she has developed are: 2014 LESTAGE Françoise and OLAVARRIA María-Eugenia (Ouvrage coordonnée par), Adoptions, dons et abandons au Mexique et en Colombie. Des parents vulnérables, Paris, L'Harmattan, Collection Recherches Amériques latines, 220 p. REVIEW by Carole Brugeilles; 2013 Olavarría, María Eugenia coordinadora, Parentescos en plural, Miguel Ángel Porrúa ed./UAM, Colección Las ciencias sociales, 336 p., Mexico REVIEW by Mercedes Bogino Larrambebere; 2010 DeSignis, Cuerpo(S): sexos, sentidos, semiosis, número 16, Federación Latinoamericana de Semiótica / Editorial La crujía, Buenos Aires 208 p.

Recent articles in indexed journals; 2019 Olavarría, María Eugenia, "Personas que gestan para otros: etnografía del trabajo reproductivo en México". AIBR, Revista de Antropología Iberoamericana, 14 (02); 2019 Olavarría, María Eugenia, "Babies or cellular tissues? Individuation and kinship of the cryopreserved embryo among users and actors of in vitro fertilization in Mexico City.", Politica y Sociedad.Olavarría, María Eugenia, " La gestación para otros en México: diversidad, homoparentalidad y exclusión", Cahiers des Amériques latines [En ligne], 88-89 | 2018, mis en ligne le 23 janvier 2019, consulté le 03 juillet 2019. Olavarría, M. E. (1). Intermediaries and donors of surrogacy in Mexico. Revista De Antropologia Social, 27(2), 325-351. Olavarría Patiño, M. The surrogate mother in Mexico and the notion of reproductive work. Revista Interdisciplinaria de Estudios de Género de El Colegio de México, 4, 1 - 31. Álvarez Plaza, Consuelo, María Eugenia Olavarría and Rosa Parisi, "Repensando el feminismo: el debate de la gestación subrogada en México, España e Italia",en Dada Rivista di Antropologia post-globale, semestrale n. 2, Dicembre