Faculty in the Department of Anthropology contribute their expertise to help solve problems in communities local and distant. This kind of service is not unusual among anthropologists, who have direct information about the challenges facing the people with whom they work and live. The breadth of our faculty’s research areas and regions is reflected in the diversity of their community outreach projects. See our web site for more information on faculty research.

Health

Pete Benson speaks to groups about tobacco and smoking. He also serves as a sponsor to student public health groups, including GlobeMed, a student-run organization focused on international public health.

Rebecca Lester founded Foundation for Applied Psychiatric Anthropology (FAPA), a nonprofit organization that provides a nexus for research, practice, and advocacy around culture and mental health issues locally, nationally, and internationally. The foundation’s mission is to generate new connections among researchers, clinicians, policymakers, and community members so as to reduce suffering from mental illness. Lester provided expert testimony to the Missouri House Special Committee on Health Insurance advocating new legislation that provides equitable coverage to individuals with eating disorders.

Assistant Professor Shanti Parikh has been working with HIV+ support and education groups in Uganda since 1996. This group practices a musical play centered on a community trying to determine the “mysterious cause of death” of the deceased, represented by the covered object in the center.

Shanti Parikh advises programs integrating gender into HIV/AIDS policy and research in the Caribbean under the auspices of the United Nations Development Fund for Women. She has also served as an evaluator for sexual health programs in primary and secondary schools in Uganda, where she conducts her research. In the United States, she serves on the board of Planned Parenthood, St. Louis Effort for AIDS, and the Professional Organization of Women.

Brad Stoner serves as consultant/medical expert on sexually transmitted disease (STD) control for the St. Louis County Department of Health and for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. He provides guidance on issues related to the prevention of STD transmission at state and local levels. Stoner is also the board chair for the American Social Health Association, the nation’s oldest social and sexual health organization, and he is active in patient education and counseling. He works occasionally with the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and the World Health Organization in Geneva on issues related to the elimination of congenital syphilis.

Lewis Wall co-founded the Worldwide Fistula Fund and has dedicated more than a decade to helping women in Africa who suffer from obstetric fistulas, a correctable condition that otherwise robs sufferers of their health and isolates them from their communities. He has begun to build a hospital in Niger as a center for fistula treatment and hopes it will be a model for other sites. [More information]

Education

Darla Dale advises Out of the Blue, a student group that promotes literacy through the arts. The group works with First Book and with Discovering Options, a state-run program that provides after-school programming to help students improve their reading skills.

Bret Gustafson is working with one of the first indigenous universities in Bolivia (UNIBOL). This initiative aims to facilitate access to higher education for native South American students of Bolivia’s eastern lowlands and Amazonian regions.

Jim Cheverud is on the Washington University Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences Steering Committee that runs the BioMedRAP program, which provides research experience for those underrepresented in science. He is also active as a mentor in the Young Scientist Program, a graduate student-run program for bringing science to local high schools and bringing high school students to work in medical labs.

Anthropology student Alma Carver helps a student in Andhra Pradesh through Professor Glenn Stone’s Village India Project. Students experience village life in India, teach in Indian classrooms, and conduct anthropological research in this six-week study abroad program.

In 2007 Glenn Stone initiated the Village India Program, based in a rural high school in a village in northern Andhra Pradesh. The program places Washington University students in classrooms where they design and teach classes that enhance the local offerings and also allow intensive English use. Among the successes of the program are photoblog and videoblog projects that let Indian students document village life.

Political and Economic Development

Robert Canfield is an expert on Central/South Asia and has served as an advisor to groups involved with the political crisis in Central Asia.

Geoff Childs serves on the board of SEEDS (Social, Educational, Environmental, Development Services), a small nonprofit organization that delivers health care and supports schools in rural Nepal.

Conservation and Cultural Preservation

David Freidel co-directs the Waka’ Archaeological Research Project at Laguna del Tigre, Guatemala, a world heritage tropical forest and wetlands site. In collaboration with government and nongovernmental partners, the project helps protect conservation lands and provides a sustainable livelihood for families displaced by war who have established communities in protected parklands. The workforce for the archaeology project is drawn largely from the families of these communities, who are trained by experienced local excavators.

John Kelly works with the Powell Archaeological Research Center (PARC), a nonprofit group that works to preserve the ancient pre-Columbian communities in the St. Louis region. These include Cahokia Mounds, East St. Louis mounds, and the Pulcher and Washausen mound centers. He is also on a task force organized by U.S. Representative Russell Carnahan for the preservation of the Sugar Loaf Mound in St. Louis.

Robert Sussman is a scientific advisor to the Lemur Conservation Foundation in Myakka, Florida, and is a scientific advisor to the Saint Louis Zoo.

Washington University encourages community outreach and supports its associates who contribute their services and expertise to the larger world. The Gephardt Institute for Public Service is a source of information about University initiatives, opportunities for public service, and examples of projects University members have undertaken.

Alumni: Please let us know about public service projects with which you are involved so we can include this information in future issues.