Larry Au is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at The City College of New York, CUNY. His research examines the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in the production of biomedical knowledge, and asks how clinicians and scientists can better serve their patients and the public. Part of this work examines the globalization of precision medicine—or the use of genomics and other forms of big data to improve diagnosis and treatment—as a policy idea and scientific project, focusing primarily on its rise in China. Another part of this research looks at the politics of expertise around Long Covid, in particular, the experience of patients as they navigate uncertainties around their condition. He is also currently working on his book project Dreams of Global Science: The Transnational Politics of Chinese Biomedical Innovation (under contract with Columbia University Press), which examines how scientific norms and priorities are shaped by a researcher's location within scientific networks and how geopolitics is influencing science in China.

His work has been published in journals such as Sociological Forum, Social Science & Medicine, SSM-Qualitative Research in Health, Science Technology & Human Values, Public Understanding of Science, and other venues. This research has been supported by the Luce/ACLS Program in China Studies, the Social Science Research Council, the National Science Foundation through the Trans-Atlantic Platform for Social Sciences and Humanities, the National Institutes of Health’s program on Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity and Researcher Diversity (AIM-AHEAD), and other funders, and has received awards such as the Henry Wasser Award from the CUNY Academy and the Star-Nelkin Paper Award from the American Sociological Association.

He is serving as an elected council member (2023-2025) of the American Sociological Association's Science, Knowledge, and Technology Section, a co-organizer (2023-2028) of the newly formed Network T: Health at the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, and a member of the editorial board of Qualitative Sociology and The Sociological Quarterly. He also co-organizes a workshop Theory and Analysis in Science, Knowledge, and Society (TASKS) for CUNY and NYC-area researchers.

• Ph.D. in Sociology, Columbia University, 2022
• M.Sc. in Global Governance and Diplomacy, University of Oxford, 2015
• M.A. in History and B.Sc. in Social Analysis and Research (with Honors and magna cum laude), Brown University, 2014

• Methods and Techniques of Sociological Research (SOC 23200) [Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Spring 2025, Fall 2025]
• Illness Narratives and Patient Experiences (SOC 31166) [Spring 2024]
• Learning to Care: How Doctors and Health Professionals Deliver Medical Care (SOC 31975) [Fall 2022, Fall 2025]
• Data Justice and Algorithmic Accountability (SOC 31182) [Spring 2023, Fall 2024]
• Science, Technology, and Society (SOC 31920) [Fall 2023]
• Health Equity: Biological and Social Determinants of Health (SOC 31184/BIO 31141, co-taught with Bao Vuong, Biology) [Spring 2025]

Book

Dreams of Global Science: The Transnational Politics of Chinese Biomedical Innovation (Under Contract with Columbia University Press)

Articles

• Gil Eyal, Larry Au, and Cristian Capotescu. 2024. “Trust is a Verb!: A Critical Reconstruction of the Sociological Theory of Trust”. Sociologica 18(2): 169-191. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/19316
  • Commentary: Elena Esposito. 2024. “The Dilemma of Trust in the Risk Society: Commentary on Gil Eyal, Larry Au and Cristian Capotescu’s “Trust is a Verb!””. Sociologica 18(2): 193-198. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/20108
  • Commentary: Guido Mollering. 2024. “Practice(s) of Trusting. Commentary on Gil Eyal, Larry Au and Cristian Capotescu’s “Trust is a Verb!””. Sociologica 18(2): 199-208. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/20450
  • Response: Gil Eyal, Larry Au, and Cristian Capotescu. 2024. “The Indeterminacy of Trust. A Response to Möllering and Esposito’s Commentaries”. Sociologica 18(2): 209-214. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/20491
• Gil Eyal, Larry Au, Cristian Capotescu, Amanda Curi, Renan Gonçalves Leonel da Silva, Yijie (Coco) Fang, Jingyu Lang, Shuhan Li, Chang Liu, Jessica Liu, and Jian Su. 2024. “¿Qué hay en un nombre? La política de los síntomas post‑ covid en tres países”. Ciencia, Público y Sociedad 1(1): 3‑22. https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/cps/article/view/45247
  • English Version: “What’s in a Name? Contrasting the Politics of Post‑Covid Symptoms Across Three Countries” https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/juxag
• Renan Gonçalves Leonel da Silva, Larry Au, and Alessandro Blasimme. 2024. “Organizational aspects of tissue engineering clinical translation: Insights from a qualitative case study”. Translational Medicine Communications 9: 17. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41231‑024‑00179‑7
• Renan Gonçalves Leonel da Silva, Jakob Jakob Schweizer, Kalina Kamenova, Larry Au, Alessandro Blasimme, and Effy Vayena. 2024. “Organizational Change of Synthetic Biology Research: Emerging Initiatives Advancing a Bottom‑Up Approach”. Current Research in Biotechnology 7: 100188. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crbiot.2024.100188
• Larry Au. 2023. “Ethical Choreography in China’s Human Gene Editing Controversy”. Science as Culture 32(4): 535-557. https://doi.org/10.1080/09505431.2023.2218401
• Larry Au, Cristian Capotescu, Amanda Curi, Renan Gonçalves Leonel da Silva, and Gil Eyal. 2023. “Long Covid Requires a Global Response Centered on Equity and Dialogue”. Global Health Action 16(1): 2244757. https://doi.org/10.1080/16549716.2023.2244757
• Larry Au, Cristian Capotescu, Gil Eyal, and Gabrielle Finestone. 2022. “Long Covid and Medical Gaslighting: Dismissal, Delayed Diagnosis, and Deferred Treatment”. SSM - Qualitative Research in Health 2: 100167. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmqr.2022.100167
  • Received the 2023 Star-Nelkin Paper Award from the American Sociological Association's Science, Knowledge, and Technology Section
• Larry Au and Gil Eyal. 2022. “Whose Advice is Credible? Claiming Lay Expertise on a Covid-19 Online Community”. Qualitative Sociology 45(1): 31-62. http://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-021-09492-1
• Larry Au, Zheng Fu, and Chuncheng Liu. 2022. “‘It’s (Not) Like the Flu’: Expert Narratives and the Covid-19 Pandemic in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and the United States”. Sociological Forum 37(3). http://doi.org/10.1111/socf.12819
• Renan Gonçalves Leonel da Silva and Larry Au. 2022. “The Blind Spots of Sociotechnical Imaginaries: Covid-19 Skepticism in Brazil, United Kingdom, and the United States”. Science, Technology and Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/09717218221125217
• Larry Au. 2022. “Testing the Talented Child: Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Talent Tests in China”. Public Understanding of Science 31(2): 195-210. https://doi.org/10.1177/09636625211051964
• Larry Au. 2022. “Imagining the Public: Anticipatory Discourses in China’s Push for Precision Medicine”. BioSocieties 17(1): 53-77. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41292-020-00205-5
• Larry Au. 2021. “Recent Scientific/Intellectual Movements in Biomedicine”. Social Science & Medicine 278: 113950. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113950
• Larry Au and Renan Gonçalves Leonel da Silva. 2021. “Globalizing the Scientific Bandwagon: Trajectories of Precision Medicine in Brazil and China”. Science, Technology, & Human Values 46(1): 192-225. https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243920930282

Reviews

• Alya Guseva, Larry Au, and Etienne Nouguez. 2024. "Book Review Symposium of Capitalizing a Cure: How Finance Controls the Price and Value of Medicines by Victor Roy". Socio-Economic Review 22(2): 953-965. https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwae030
• Larry Au. 2024. “Book Review of A Research Agenda for COVID‑19 and Society edited by Steve Matthewman”. Contemporary Sociology 53:1: 71‑73. https://doi.org/10.1177/00943061231214609cc
• Larry Au. 2023. “Book Review of On Expertise: Cultivating Character, Goodwill, and Practical Wisdom by Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher”. Contemporary Sociology 52(5): 465‑466. https://doi.org/10.1177/00943061231191421aa
• Larry Au. 2023. “Expertise, translation, and pandemics”. International Sociology Reviews 38(2): 175-181. https://doi.org/10.1177/02685809231158844
• Larry Au. 2023. “Book Review of Asian Scientists on the Move: Changing Science in a Changing Asia by Anju Mary Paul”. East Asian Science, Technology and Society 17(1): 114‐117. https://doi.org/10.1080/18752160.2022.2162365
• Larry Au. 2023. “Book Review of The Elephant and the Dragon in Contemporary Life Sciences: A Call for Decolonising Global Governance by Joy Y. Zhang and Saheli Datta Burton”. The Journal of Development Studies 59(3): 452-453. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2022.2110355
• Larry Au. 2022. “Book Review of Mass Vaccination: Citizens’ Bodies and State Power in Modern China by Mary Augusta Brazelton”. Sociology of Health & Illness 44(1): 262-263. http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13406
• Larry Au. 2021. “The board game Pandemic: Sociotechnical imaginaries of cooperation obscuring power relations”. Science as Culture 30(4): 598-602. https://doi.org/10.1080/09505431.2021.1965111