Research Interests – Education – Experience – Publications

Personal info

Position	PhD student
Email	arodriguez974@ikasle.ehu.eus
Website	https://www.ias-research.net/ainhoa-rodriguez-muguruza/
Phone	943015516
Address	EHU/UPV, Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, Avenida de Tolosa 70, 20080 Donostia – San Sebastián

Summary

Whist completing her Philosophy Degree at the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, she felt drawn towards the field of Philosophy of Biology, as well as towards phenomenological texts on enbodiment and the concept of lived experience. Through her first years in academia, she deepened her knowledge on philosophical figures like Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, and Maria Zambrano, writing her BA dissertation in Basque on “The Embroidery of Dread: a Dialogue between Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt and Maria Zambrano” supervised by Professor Cristina Lasa.

During her 1-year Erasmus+ funded stay at the University of Regina, she acquired a strong background on Modern Philosophy, Metaphysics and Hermeneutics and felt encouraged to pursue a Master’s Programme focused on grounding figures of German and French Continental Philosophy at the University of Warwick. Being taught on philosophers such as Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Deleuze and, Foucault, and particularly attracted to the philosophy of contemporary phenomenologists like Havi Carel, Ainhoa completed her MA dissertation “A Heideggerian Bridge: from a Cartesian Psychology to a Phenomenological Science of the Mind” supervised by Professor Miguel de Beistegui.

As she kept progressing within academia, Ainhoa narrowed her field of interest to the Medical Humanities. Although she had conducted her research previously around the contepts of mental health and illness, she felt more and more curious about the very underresearched field of feminine reproductive health and its impact of women’s mental health. Committed to a more inclusive production of medical research, she started her PhD and continued learning about more technical elements of clinical research compleiting a 6-week course on “Design and Interpretation of Clinical Trials” at the John Hopkins University that aimed to explain the basic principles for design of randomized clinical trials and how they should be reported.

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Research interests

• Philosophy of Biology
• Philosophy of Medicine
• Medical Humanities
• Phenomenology
• Gender Studies

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Education

2020 – 2023 PhD Philosophy, Science and Values. University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU.

2018 – 2019 Master in Continental Philosophy. University of Warwick.

2014 – 2018 Philosophy Degree. University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU.

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Conferences

• Participation on the Culture and the Reproductive Body Symposium organised by Dr. Meredith Miller (Cardiff University) with the talk “Why I Want to Bleed (and Why You Should Too)” (December 2023)
• Participation on the “Women and their Body” conference organised by organised by Dr. Jil Muller (University of Paderborn) and the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists at Paderborn University with the talk “Been Seen whilst Hidden” (March 2023)
• Participation on the “ENDOMARCH 2023” event organised by Endoeuskady with the Talk “Medioambiente Menstrual: sobre cómo el mundo en el que vivimos Hoy definirá cómo menstruamos Mañana” (March 2023)
• Participation on the “#SRUKMidlands #InternationaDayofWomenandGirlsinScience Webinar: Women, Subject, and Object in Science” organised by the Society of Spanish Researchers in the UK with the talk “Dare to Menstruate: on how Periods can change the way we do Science” (February, 2023)
• Participation on the “Séminaire Histoires, méthodes et actualités des savoirs situés féministes” seminar series organised by the University of Louvain with the talk “Menstrual Knowledges” (November, 2022)
• Participation on the I Congreso Virtual AFIN sobre Salud Reproductiva Femenina organised by the Autonomous University of Barcelona with the talk “The Concept of “Relational Health”: How Menstruating Bodies are Key for Understanding Health” (October, 2022)
• Participation on the XL Congress Of the Spanish Society of Physiological Sciences organised by the University of Extremadura with the talk “Statistical Analysis of the Self-Reported Persistence of Long-COVID19 Symptoms in Naturally Cycling Women Depending on the Phase of the Menstrual Cycle in which they Tested Positive” (September, 2022)
• Participation on the Virtual Online Symposium on Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology organised by the University of Texas at Dallas with the talk “Emotional Numbness: On How the Menstrual Cycle Regulates Emotions (and How Hormonal Birth Control Impairs it)” (August, 2022)
• Participation on the Outonomy Workshop conference organised by the University of the Basque Country with the talk “Beyond the Ovary: an Overview of the Factors Involved in Ovarian Function Variation” (June, 2022)
• Participation on the Reproductive Futures Conference organised by Tampere University. I took part with the talk “Why I Want to Bleed (and Why You Should Too)” (June, 2022)
• Participation on the IHPST Graduate Conference organised by the University of Toronto. I took part with the talk “The Role of Menstrual Tracking Apps in the Battle Against Epistemic Injustice” (May 2022)
• Participation on the Conference Series “Representations, Images, and Social Imaginaries” sponsored by Peruvian Circle of Phenomenology and Hermeneutics and organized by Luz Ascarate, Raphael Aybar, and Rodrigo Y. Sandoval. I took part with the talk “Representing Menstruation: Menstrual Participatory-Sense Making” (April 2022)
• Participation on the VivaMente Conference organised by Dr. Jil Muller (University of Paderborn) and Prof. Guido Giglioni (University of Macerata) on “From Automata to Transhumans: Debating Human Nature and its Limitations 1600-2000”. I took part with the talk “Birth Control and Other Menstrual Technologies” (April 2022)
• Participation on the NOPE Conference organised by the Northern Palaeolithic and Evolutionary Anthropology (NOPE) Network. I took part with the talk “Menstrual Histories: on How we Menstruated then might have Determined Why we Menstruate Now” (April 2022)
• Participation on the 2022 Spring School organised by the DFG-Graduiertenkolleg/Research Training Group “Situated Cognition” located at the Ruhr University Bochum and University of Osnabrück on “Situated Cognition: Applications, Prospects, and Limits”. I took part with the poster “Menstrual Knowledges” (March 2022)
• Participation on the 10th Congress of the Spanish Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science Society en España organised by the University of Salamanca. I took part with the paper “Why I want to bleed (and why you should as well): Function, normativity, and menstrual health” together with Professor Arantza Etxeberria (November, 2021)
• Participation on the conference “Enactivism and Phenomenology: State of the Dialog” organised by Palacky University. I took part with the paper “Menstrual Cycles as key to embodied Synchronisation” (November, 2021)
• Participation on the conference “Philosophy of Biology and Cognitive Sciences X” organised by the Autonomous University of Madrid. I took part with the paper “Menstrual Cycles as key to embodied Synchronisation” (May, 2021)
• Participation on the workshop “Postgenomic Determinisms: Environmental Narratives after the Century of the Gene” organised by the Ruhr Universität Bochum within the 8th RUB Workshop for History and Philosophy of the Life Science. I took part with the poster “Am I Meant to Bleed” (March, 2021)
• Participation on the workshop “Women and homelessness – issues of maternal identity, parenting and reproductive health” organised by Sheffied Hallam University. I took part with the paper “Gendered Epistemic Homelessness” (November, 2019)
• Participation on the Medical Humanities Postgraduate Conference with the paper “Phenomenological Narrativity and the Second-Person Perspective” within the panel Embodied Experiences & Narratives: Articulating phenomenologies of illness” (June, 2019)
• Participation on the III International Symposium with the paper “Pragmatics of Identity. Reclaiming Pragmatics as a Political Element” within the panel Vulnerability, Exclusions and Epistemic Injustice (February, 2019)

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Projects

“Metaphysics of Biology: Processes and Dispositions” with Reference Number PID2021-127184NB-I00 in collaboration with the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (2022)

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Publications

Published

Rodriguez-Muguruza, A., “Menstrual Cycles: A Key to Embodied Synchronisation” in Life and Mind: New Directions in the Philosophy of Biology and Cognitive Sciences, ed. Viejo, J.M. and Sanjuan, M., Springer (2023)

Etxebarria-Agiriano, A., Rodriguez-Muguruza, A., “La noción de salud menstrual y la menopausia” in Pasajes, 65 (2022)

Rodriguez-Muguruza, A., Book Review of Rosi Braidotti, Posthuman Feminism, Polity Press, 2022, 302pp, ISBN 9781509518071 in Journal of Ethics and Emerging Technologies 9: x (2022)

In Press

Rodriguez-Muguruza, A. et al. “Methodological Urgency of Menstrual Cycles to be Considered a Differentiating Factor within Sample Groups on Scientific Trial: What Does it Mean for A Research Subject to Menstruate. A Study in Collaboration with IronFEMME Project” (in press)