Welcome
I am a biocultural anthropologist and President's Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University, where I founded the Center for Global Health. Trained in human biology, demography, and medical anthropology, I do collaborative, transdisciplinary social science research to understand and solve complex health and environmental challenges, like water insecurity and stigma in health care. At ASU, I teach undergraduate anthropology and global health and train advanced students interested in careers in or beyond the academy. I am also Senior Editor (Medical Anthropology) for the journal Social Science and Medicine.
News: Meet our SSM-Medical Anthro team
In mid 2022, I joined the editorial team for Social Science and Medicine, leading the Medical Anthropology desk, along with Cindi SturtzSreetharan (Associate Editor) and Alissa Ruth (Assistant Editor). Contact any of us if you have questions about submissions, ideas for special issues, for mentoring, or if you have feedback to share. We look forward to working with all potential SSM authors - just reach out!
Our New Books
Lazy, Crazy, and Disgusting: Stigma and the Undoing of Global Health: Winner of the Carol R Ember Book Prize (2021) and the Human Biology Association Book Award (2020). Here is more on our anti-stigma work.
Extreme Weight Loss: Life Before and After Bariatric Surgery (2021). Here is a BBC interview about the book.
Fat in Four Cultures: A Global Ethnography of Weight (2021). Here is more on the book.
Anti-Stigma Work
As part of my scholarly outreach, I am engaged in advancing anti-stigma efforts in medical and public health practice. We have recently developed a stigma awareness/reduction training for CHES credit that is offered free through the Western Public Health Training Center.
Also, here is a recent interview with PBS, talking about why this solving this problem matters.
Recent Podcasts
Period Podcast. Illness, stigma, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Psych Central. How stigma is everywhere.
Water and Society - book series
We are editing a new book series in partnership with Johns Hopkins University Press. We are looking for insightful social science about how water - or lack of it - shapes and reflects our lives and societies.
Household Water Insecurity Experiences Research Network (HWISE-RCN)
I am proud to be on the steering committee of the HWISE research collaborative network, funded by the National Science Foundation. The effort brings together scholars and practitioners from all around the world to better document the lived experience of water insecurity.
The homepage header is a painting by Odra Noel, courtesy of Wellcome Collections. It shows the tissue of the major diseases in different world regions
Our Psychology Today Blog
You can visit our Psychology Today blog to enjoy some posts related to our and others' research and thoughts on the connections between stigma and health, imagining ways to make life better for all.