Rate My Professor Cal Volks

Dr. Cal Volks is a Research Fellow in Anthropology at Monash University's School of Social Sciences within the Faculty of Arts. She holds a BA (Hons) and MA in Psychology from Rhodes University, awarded in 1994, and completed her PhD at La Trobe University Law School, focusing on the experiences of Australian egg and sperm donors who connect via online platforms. Her career includes serving as Director of the HIV/AIDS & Inclusivity Unit at the University of Cape Town, where she conducted research, taught students, provided counselling, and developed sexual and reproductive health interventions. She has worked as a Senior Counsellor in fertility settings in South Africa (2012-2016) and Melbourne (2018-2022), a Donor Linking Counsellor at VARTA (2020-2021), and currently as Senior Counsellor at Thrive Fertility. She coordinated the Victoria Infertility Counsellors’ Group (2020-2023), served on the ANZICA executive (2019-2022), and coordinates the Australian Sociology Association Families and Relationships group (2024-2025).

Cal Volks' research investigates how digital platforms shape donor reproductive practices, kinship, and identity formation in donor-assisted reproduction. She contributes to ARC-funded projects on oocyte mobilities in Southern Africa and uterus transplants with Prof. Andrea Whittaker. Key publications include 'Consequences for Australian recipients of cross border oocyte donation in South Africa: double embryo transfer and donor anonymity' (2025, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology), 'From clicks to creating kin: how Australian online egg donors craft relationships with recipients and donor-conceived children' (2025, Human Fertility), 'Life in transit: the work of hyper-mobile gamete couriers in vital mobility infrastructures' (2025, Mobilities), and 'A scoping review of the psychosocial aspects of infertility in African countries' (2024, Reproductive Health). She has received the Erasmus Mundus Scholarship (2014), Mellon grant for HERS leadership training (2002), SASH grant (2016), and La Trobe University PhD Scholarship (2019). Volks engages in policy through submissions to the Australian Law Reform Commission on surrogacy laws, peer reviews for Human Fertility, committee roles such as the Monash Roundtable on Surrogacy programme committee, and presentations at Re-worlding Reproduction (2024) and other international conferences. Her work delivers education and policy interventions for university students and fertility stakeholders in Australia, South Africa, Vietnam, and Japan.