Sherry B. Ortner is Distinguished Research Professor of Anthropology at UCLA. She received her A.B. from Bryn Mawr College, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. She has received numerous grants and fellowships, including awards from the National Science Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 1990 she was the recipient of a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowship.

Ortner has done extensive ethnographic and historical research with the Sherpas of Nepal, and her final book on the Sherpas (Life and Death on Mt. Everest: Sherpas and Himalayan Mountaineering) was awarded the J.I. Staley Prize for the best book in Anthropology (2004).

She has also conducted several major research projects in the U.S., including a study of her high school graduating class, a study of the world of independent film, and most recently a study of an activist film production company. In addition to her ethnographic work, she publishes regularly in the areas of social, cultural, and feminist theory.