Society for Medical Anthropology

A section of the American Anthropological Association

Academic Resources: Graduate Programs

 

University of Connecticut

Degrees offered:

  • BA, MA, PhD (Storrs campus); plus MPH, MD (Farmington campus)

Core Faculty:

  • Pamela I. Erickson (Dr.P.H.,UCLA 1988; Ph.D. SUNY Buffalo 1993; Associate Professor of Anthropology & Public Health) Influence of cultural, social, economic, and political factors on health and disease in human populations; ethnomedicine; human reproduction; maternal and child health; adolescence; women, health, and development; minority health; international health; epidemiology; research methods; South America.
    Email: erickson@uconnvm.uconn.edu.
    Webpage: http://www.anth.uconn.edu/faculty/erickson/
  • W. Penn Handwerker (Ph.D.Oregon 1971; Professor of Anthropology and Public Health, and Department Head) Power, culture, and social relations; evolutionary theory; culture theory; cultural evolution and social change; health transition; research methods; West Africa, West Indies, Arctic, and contemporary U.S.
    Email: handwerker@uconn.edu.
    Webpage: http://www.anth.uconn.edu/faculty/handwerker/

Affliated Academic Faculty:

  • Henrietta Bernal (PhD UConn 1982, RN; Prof) Nursing, international health, Hispanic populations.
  • James S. Boster (Ph.D. Berkeley 1981; Professor) Cognitive anthropology, intracultural variation, methods, ethnopsychology, ethnobiology, social networks, human ecology, ethnology of South America; South America.
  • Holger Hansen (MD Freie Universitaet, Berlin, 1961, DPH Columbia 1973; Prof) Director, Graduate Program in Public Health; Epidemiology, community medicine and health care.
  • Sara Harkness (PhD Harvard 1975, Prof). School of Family Studies and Editor-in-Chief, Ethos. The cultural structuring of human development; parents' cultural belief systems and parenting; cognitive, affective and social development in early childhood; child language socialization; theories of culture and human development; cultural influences on health at the household and community levels; family policy. Area specializations: East Africa, U.S., Europe.
  • Robin Harwood (PhD Yale 1991; Assoc Prof) School of Family Studies. Developmental psychology, cultural psychology, early socio-emotional development, attachment theory, Latino populations in the U.S.
  • Samuel Martinez (Ph.D. Johns Hopkins 1991; Assistant Professor) African diaspora, agrarian societies, migration, human rights, economic anthropology, social meanings of space, time, and commodities, race and ethnicity, local/global interactions, history and anthropology; Latin America and the Caribbean.
  • Sally McBrearty (Ph.D. Illinois 1986; Associate Professor) Human evolution, particularly the origin of Homo Sapiens, paleolithic archaeology, African prehistory, lithic technology, taphonomy and geoarchaeology; Africa.
  • Richard Sosis (Ph.D. New Mexico 1997; Assistant Professor) Behavioral ecology, collective action problems, evolution of cooperation, economic anthropology, foraging theory, evolution of religion, kibbutzim, and utopian societies; Micronesia, Israel, Middle East.

Affiliated Clinical Faculty:

  • Bruce Bernstein (PhD UConn 1988; Asst Prof ) Director of Research, Department of Pediatrics, St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center and Asst Prof, Department of Pediatrics, UConn School of Medicine.
  • Georgina Burke (PhD UConn 1987; Asst Prof). Director, Child Health Data Center, Connecticut Children's Medical Center, and Assistant Professor, Departments of Community Medicine and Pediatrics, UConn Health Center.
  • Homero Martinez, (PhD Cornell, 1991; MD Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 1978; Prof) Senior Investigator, Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica, Cuernavaca, Mexico. Medical Anthropology, International Nutrition, Pediatric Epidemiology.
  • Lee Pachter (DO Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine 1983; Assoc Prof ) Associate Director of Pediatric Inpatient Services, St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center and Assoc Prof, Department of Pediatrics, UConn School of Medicine. Hispanic populations in the U.S., pediatrics, folk illness
  • Steve Schensul (PhD Minnesota 1969; Assoc Prof) Director, Center for International Community Health Studies, UConn School of Community Medicine
  • Michele Shedlin, (PhD Columbia 1982; Prof) President, Sociomedical Resource Associates (Westport, CT). Women's health, sexuality, reproductive health, Latino populations in the U.S., Latin America and the Caribbean.

Program information:

Applied Medical Anthropology at University of Connecticut, the oldest medical anthropology graduate program in the country, brings together theory bearing on biology, ecology, culture, and social relations to investigate human health, disease, illness, and curing, historically and in the present. We base our program in culture and health processes on the observation that, the week that NIH announced that we had decoded the human genome, a conference on "Higher Levels of Analysis" held at the NIH campus simultaneously recognized that what the genome does is contingent on the cultural environment in which it functions. Rigorous training in research methods and theory, combined with practical, applied field experience, prepares our graduates for professional careers in teaching, research, and practice. Students have the opportunity to draw on the expertise of a wide range of academic faculty in anthropology, community medicine, and developmental psychology, and faculty preceptors who conduct research in clinical and community-based settings: St. Francis Hospital, Connecticut Children's Medical Center, the National School of Public Health in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and the consulting firm of Sociomedical Resource Associates. Curricular clusters include:

  • ethnomedicine; health policy and programs; human sexuality and reproduction; international health; public health; women's health; violence, stress, and social support; maternal, child, and adolescent health.
    Current faculty research projects focus on adolescent and women's health issues, and the demographic and epidemiological transitions which accompany social change in the contemporary world.

Address:

  • Anthropology Department, U-2176
    University of Connecticut
    Storrs, CT 06268-2176
    phone: (860) 486-4512
    fax: (860) 486-1719
    Email: antman1@uconnvm.uconn.edu
    Webpage: http://www.anth.uconn.edu/