| Birth Date: | 11 June 1950 |
| Birth Place: | Montreal, Canada |
| Fields: | Cultural Anthropology |
| Workplaces: | Southern Methodist University |
| Alma Mater: | Yale University Brown University |
| Awards: | 2017 Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences |
| Spouse: | Richard Brettell |
Zoe Caroline Brettell (née Bieler; born June 11, 1950[1]) is a Canadian cultural anthropologist known for her scholarship on migration and gender.[2] She is currently Professor Emerita at Southern Methodist University, where she was previously University Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Ruth Collins Altshuler Professor.[3] At SMU, Brettell served as Chair of the Department of Anthropology, interim Dean of the Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, and inaugural Director of the Dedman College Interdisciplinary Institute.[4] She has also been President of both the Society for the Anthropology of Europe (1996–1998) and the Social Science History Association (2000–2001).
Brettell's ethnographic research in Portugal and Texas is notable for centering the gendered, lived experiences of migrants.[5] In 2017, she was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[6] [7]
Brettell received a Bachelor of Arts in Latin American studies from Yale University in 1971. In 1976, her husband, art historian Rick Brettell, was hired at the University of Texas, and the two moved to Austin. She completed her dissertation, Hope and Nostalgia: The Migration of Portueguese Women to Paris, and received her Ph.D. in Anthropology at Brown University in 1978.[8] Brettell moved to Chicago in 1980.
Brettell joined the faculty at SMU in 1988.[9]
Brettell was married to Rick Brettell, former Director of the Dallas Museum of Art and Margaret M. McDermott Distinguished Chair of Art and Aesthetic Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas.[10]