Newsletter: May 2003
Nancy Vuckovic and Janelle Taylor, Contributing Editors
SMA Awards: Polgar, Hughes, and Rivers
Paper Competitions
The SMA announces the year 2003 competition
for the Rivers Undergraduate Student Paper Prize,
the Charles Hughes Graduate Student Paper Prize,
and the Steven Polgar Paper Prize. The Rivers
Prize will be given for the outstanding paper
in medical anthropology written by an undergraduate
student; the Hughes Prize will be awarded for
the best paper written by a graduate student.
Both prizes carry a $250 cash award, and the journal
Medical Anthropology Quarterly will have the right
of first refusal on winning manuscripts.
Five copies of entries for the Rivers and Hughes prizes must be postmarked by XXXXXX 2003. They should not exceed 20 double-spaced pages, excluding bibliography. Details about the author, including social security number, should be included in a cover letter, not in the manuscripts themselves. Winners will be announced at the 2003 SMA annual business meeting in Chicago.
The Steven Polgar Prize in is awarded to a professional (postgraduate) medical anthropologist for the best paper published in the SMA’s journal Medical Anthropology Quarterly during the most recent complete volume year. The prize carries a $500 cash award. No nominations are needed. All articles published in MAQ by eligible recipients will automatically be considered for this prize. Send submissions and inquiries to: SMA Prize Committee Chair Vincanne Adams, Department of Anthropology History and Social Medicine, PO Box 0850, 3333 California Street, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143-0850.
PLEASE NOTE: If you have received a Rivers, Hughes or Polgar Award in the past, please send your name and the year you received the award to Mark Nichter at MNichter@u.arizona.edu. The SMA Board is reconstructing a complete list of all award holders and needs to check names against its working list.
Eileen Basker Memorial Prize For Studies
in Gender and Health
The Eileen Basker Memorial Prize promotes excellence
in research on gender and health. The Basker Prize
is awarded annually to scholars from any discipline
or nation for a specific book, article, film or
exceptional PhD thesis produced within the preceding
three years. The Prize is announced during the
SMA business meeting and winners receive a cash
award.
Individuals are nominated by one or more person(s) who must write a letter of nomination verifying the impact of the particular work on the field. Self-nomination is not permitted, and works submitted without an accompanying letter of nomination cannot be considered. Contact information (email, telephone or address) of the nominated individual must be specified in this letter.
To submit a nomination, contact the chair of
the Basker Prize Committee:
Catherine Panter-Brick
Department of Anthropology
University of Durham
43 Old Elvet
Durham DH1 3HN
tel (44) 191 374 2840/41; fax (44) 191 374 7527
Catherine.Panter-Brick@durham.ac.uk
All material must be sent in triplicate by Thursday, June 26, 2003. Please include the full name and email and mail addresses for both authors and sponsors.
New SMA Awards
The SMA Board is developing two new awards:
a graduate student mentoring award and a practicing
anthropology award. Sabrina Chase (Rutgers U)
and Kari Olsen (U Iowa) are coordinating development
of the student mentoring award. Linda Hunt (U
Texas Health Science Center) and Paul Farmer (Harvard/Partners
in Health) are in charge of the practice award.
Details of the awards will be available on the
SMA website.
Palinkas named chair of NSBRI External
Advisory Council
By (Liesl Owens, National Space Biomedical
Research Inst.)
Dr. Lawrence A. Palinkas, a medical anthropologist and professor of family and preventive medicine at the U California, San Diego, has been named chair of the External Advisory Council for the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI). Dr. Palinkas research includes examination of the effect of environmental-induced changes in mood and cognitive performance on health and behavior in circumpolar regions and other extreme environments, such as long-duration space missions.
The NSBRI, funded by NASA, is a consortium of institutions studying the health risks related to long-duration space flight. The NSBRI External Advisory Council advises senior management on strategic issues and on the effectiveness of the research program.
Nichter Named to IOM Committee
Mark Nichter (Arizona), SMA president,
has been invited to become a member of the Institute
of Medicine (IOM) committee examining the use
of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in America.
The IOM produces reports on health issues and
the practice of medicine that influence health
policy and research funding agendas.
Please send your comments, contributions,
news and announcements to the SMA Contributing
Editors Nancy Vuckovic (nancy.vuckovic@kpchr.org)
or Janelle Taylor (jstaylor@u.washington.edu).