Lab Director
Jason A. DeCaro, PhD, Professor of Anthropology, is the director of DEHB. He also currently serves as Chair of the Department of Anthropology, and Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs for the College of Arts & Sciences. Dr. DeCaro's primary areas of research interest concern the intersections of cognitive, ecocultural, linguistic, and biological anthropology, with special foci on child development, stress, aging, and the embodiment of emotion through interaction.
Collaborating UA Faculty
Josh Pederson, PhD, Associate Professor of Communication Studies. Dr. Pederson's work focuses on interpersonal and relational research, and he is a member of the Interpersonal Research Group. His work with Dr. DeCaro and Dr. Pritzker was profiled by the College of Communication and Information Sciences.
Sonya Pritzker, PhD, Associate Professor of Anthropology. Dr. Pritzker works at the nexus of linguistic, medical, and psychological anthropology to examine how language affects health, and leads the Embodiment, Communication, and Health Open (Co-)Lab (ECHO) in the Anthropology Department. We are collaborating, along with Josh Pederson, on research concerning the bidirectional relationship between language and physiology in emotion communication within intimate partnerships. This is part of a larger project we are pursuing regarding building the foundations for a biolinguistic anthropology.
Sonya Pritzker, PhD, Associate Professor of Anthropology. Dr. Pritzker works at the nexus of linguistic, medical, and psychological anthropology to examine how language affects health, and leads the Embodiment, Communication, and Health Open (Co-)Lab (ECHO) in the Anthropology Department. We are collaborating, along with Josh Pederson, on research concerning the bidirectional relationship between language and physiology in emotion communication within intimate partnerships. This is part of a larger project we are pursuing regarding building the foundations for a biolinguistic anthropology.
Graduate Students
The support of graduate students from throughout the Department of Anthropology in their masters or dissertation research is a central component of DEHB's mission. To date we have been able to fully fund all our MA and PhD students under research grants, teaching assistantships through the Department of Anthropology, or university fellowships. Current graduate students:
- Baili Gall. Baili is an PhD student interested in biocultural models of food security and its impact on child health and development, particularly in the context of foster care. (Adviser: J. DeCaro)
- Kohl Dothage. Kohl is a PhD student investigating biosocial resiliency among mothers and children in rural Nicaragua. (Adviser: J. DeCaro)
- Rob Else. Rob is a PhD student studying multiple modalities of healing in relation to mental health within the Indian diaspora. (Adviser: J. DeCaro)
- Sarah Morrow. Sarah is a PhD student whose research focuses on the incorporation of social determinants of health into the practice of clinical medicine. (Adviser: J. DeCaro)
Former Students
- Jake Aronoff, MA. Jake completed a masters thesis testing hypotheses derived from life history theory relative to associations between environment, behavior, and testosterone. His masters thesis was published in Personality and Individual Differences. He is now a doctoral student at Northwestern University. (Adviser: J. DeCaro)
- Catherine Buzney, MA, MD. Catherine completed her masters thesis, subsequently published in Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry, on cultural and evolutionary considerations in the effects of stress on the timing of puberty. She studied under a University of Alabama Graduate Council Research Fellowship and a Dean's Merit Award. She is now a resident physician at Tufts Medical Center. (Adviser: J. DeCaro)
- Mike Dodson, MA. Mike completed a masters thesis concerning cultural models of taste and the sensory experience of good coffee among coffee connoisseurs in West and Central Alabama. Mike now works as a User Experience (UX) Researcher at J.B. Hunt. (Adviser: J. DeCaro)
- Johnna Dominguez, MA. Johnna completed her masters thesis on immunological responses to tattooing, and the role of tattooing practices in gender identity, contributing to work subsequently published in American Journal of Human Biology. Johnna now works at Seeds of Hope, the food justice ministry at the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles (Adviser: C. Lynn)
- Achsah Dorsey, MA. Achsah focused for her masters work on relations among food insecurity, child growth, and respiratory/diarrheal infections in Mwanza, Tanzania. Achsah was the recipient of the 2015 University of Alabama Outstanding Research by a Masters Student award, and was supported by a UA Graduate Council Research Fellowship. She is now a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. (Adviser: J. DeCaro)
- Meredith Jackson-de Graffenried, PhD. Dr. Jackson-de Graffenried's dissertation concerned cultural models, stress, and pregnancy outcomes in Jalisco, Mexico. Here in the lab, she analyzed markers of stress and inflammation in dried blood spots as part of her study. Her work was supported by an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant. Dr. Jackson-de Graffenried is now Country Director for Hellen Keller International in Dhaka, Bangladesh. (Adviser: K. Oths)
- Ross Owens, MA. For his MA thesis, Ross investigated the role of smartphones in the daily social lives of students, and tested theories regarding attachment to smartphones using autonomic psychophysiology. He now works at RTI International, a global research and consulting firm. (Adviser: J. DeCaro)
- Edward Quinn, MA. For his thesis, Edward investigated ethnic health disparities and the biological consequences of racial discrimination, using antibodies against cytomegalovirus as a marker of chronic stress. He is now a doctoral student at the University of Florida. (Adviser: J. DeCaro)
- Mary Rebecca Read-Wahidi, PhD. Dr. Read-Wahidi investigated the role of devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe among Mexican migrants to Mississippi as a moderator of immigration-related stress, work that has been published in Medical Anthropology Quarterly. Dr. Read-Wahidi was supported by a UA Graduate Council Research Fellowship. She is presently an Assistant Research Professor at the Social Science Research Center, Mississippi State University. (Adviser: J. DeCaro)
- Daryll Spangler, MA. Daryll completed an innovative MA thesis that combined experimental manipulations in a model organism (Drosophila) with secondary data analyses of a large human data set to investigate sex differences in growth responses to nutritional insufficiency. He now works in health sciences research at the University of Alabama Birmingham (Adviser: J. DeCaro)
- Sarah Szurek, PhD. Dr. Szurek's doctoral research described relations among social networks, food models, and diabetes risk among Mexican immigrants, with funding through an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant. The lab supported the incorporation into her dissertation of biomarkers for glycemic control and systemic inflammation. Dr. Szurek is now a Research Scientist in Health Outcomes & Biomedical Informatics at the University of Florida. (Adviser: K. Oths)
- Martina Thomas, PhD. Dr. Thomas completed a MA thesis concerning body image among Alabama African American girls and their mothers, now published in Medical Anthropology Quarterly. Her dissertation focused on cultural models of HIV risk and risk behavior among African American adolescent and young adult women in Alabama, with support from the McNair Program, the Southern Regional Education Board, and the National Science Foundation (NSF DDIG Grant BCS 1323705). Her dissertation was recognized as Outstanding Dissertation by the College of Arts & Sciences. (Adviser: J. DeCaro)