In recent years, my work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the American Council for Learned Societies (ACLS), the Cornell Society for the Humanities, the Cornell Center for Social Sciences, the Einaudi Center for International Studies, the Atkinson Center for Sustainability, and Engaged Cornell.

2013-2016. Skin. Research albinism and traditional medicine in Tanzania. Ethnographic fieldwork investigates traditional medicines addressing skin diseases through interviews and participant observation with healers and patients as well as interviews with doctors and patients and observations of clinical encounters in the Regional Dermatology Training Center (RDTC) at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical College. Participant-observation during Albino Outreach Clinic and interviews with clients also conducted. Review of clinical files. Planning discussions underway for an evaluation of the Albino Program.

2008-2015. Global Tradition, Tanzanian Medicine. A preliminary exploration of the production and circulation of medicines and medical knowledge central to the making of a global traditional medicine, through a case study in Tanzania. Ethnography of the sciences critical to the development of materia medica in Tanzania, and investigation of the questions and challenges this laboratory work sparks. 

2005-2007. Conjuring a Global Traditional Medicine.  Archival research in the World Health Organization (Geneva, Switzerland) on the history of WHO’s concern with traditional medicine, particularly the development of WHO’s Traditional Medicine Unit and the evolution of WHO’s work with Traditional Birth Attendants.

summer 2004.  Making Tanzanian Traditional Medicine.  Research concerning recent initiatives to institutionalize Traditional Medicine in Tanzania, including legislation, changes in Ministry of Health, and a new research center in the National Institutes of Medical Research.  

summer 2003.  Differences in Tanzanian Biomedicine.  In-depth interviews with nurses and nurses’ aides in southeastern Tanzania concerning their personal experiences with Traditional Medicine and the (illicit) use of Traditional Medicine in the hospital. Observation of outreach to and HIV training for traditional healers.   

summer 2002.  History of Biomedicine’s Expansion in Southeastern Tanzania.  Archival work in the East Africana Library at the University of Dar es Salaam on the history of biomedicine in southeastern Tanzania.

1998-2000.  Devils and Development.  Ethnography of healing in the Newala District of the Mtwara Province in southeastern Tanzania on reproductive and health in an area challenged by endemic malaria and the spread of HIV/AIDS. Fieldwork conducted in partial fulfillment of my PhD at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (2001). Recipient of the John J. Honigmann Prize for best dissertation in socio-cultural anthropology.

summer 1997.  Pre-dissertation Fieldwork.  Investigation into the routine practices of Maternal and Child Health and family planning clinics in central and southern Tanzania.