ECHO People*
* space under construction: more soon!
Sonya Pritzker, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, UA Anthropology
sepritzker@ua.edu
I received my Ph.D. in 2011 from the UCLA Department of Anthropology, where Drs. Elinor Ochs (linguistic anthropology) and Linda Garro (psychological/medical anthropology) served as my co-chairs. In 2015, after working for several years at the UCLA Center for East-West Medicine and the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine Division of Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, I joined the faculty of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alabama. At UA, I am active in the core program in biocultural medical anthropology and serve as the department’s linguistic anthropologist. I am also active in the interdepartmental Linguistics and Asian Studies minors . Since 2016, I have also been actively engaged with the decolonization of my own scholarship as well as, more broadly, the discipline of anthropology. I have also been working with students across majors on the development of a robust language and social justice program on campus. In 2020, I was awarded an NSF CAREER fellowship (2020-2025) to investigate the intersection of embodiment and social justice using the emerging method of biolinguistic anthropology..
Associate Professor, UA Anthropology
sepritzker@ua.edu
I received my Ph.D. in 2011 from the UCLA Department of Anthropology, where Drs. Elinor Ochs (linguistic anthropology) and Linda Garro (psychological/medical anthropology) served as my co-chairs. In 2015, after working for several years at the UCLA Center for East-West Medicine and the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine Division of Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, I joined the faculty of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alabama. At UA, I am active in the core program in biocultural medical anthropology and serve as the department’s linguistic anthropologist. I am also active in the interdepartmental Linguistics and Asian Studies minors . Since 2016, I have also been actively engaged with the decolonization of my own scholarship as well as, more broadly, the discipline of anthropology. I have also been working with students across majors on the development of a robust language and social justice program on campus. In 2020, I was awarded an NSF CAREER fellowship (2020-2025) to investigate the intersection of embodiment and social justice using the emerging method of biolinguistic anthropology..
Jason DeCaro, Ph.D.
Professor & Chair, UA Anthropology
Jason.a.decaro@ua.edu
Jason DeCaro (PhD Emory, 2006) is a biocultural medical and psychological anthropologist and human biologist with interests in human developmental ecology and neuroanthropology. Dr. DeCaro studies the intersection of cultural models, everyday practices, and human physiology in the production of differential well-being across the life course, especially but not exclusively focusing on children.
Major current research projects concern pathways among food insecurity, nutritional status, social status and differential well-being in the United States, Central America and East Africa; the role of daily routines and cultural models in patterns of physical activity among older adults with osteoarthritis; biocultural-linguistic approaches to the science of emotion regulation; and psychobiological moderation of school adjustment in children.
Professor & Chair, UA Anthropology
Jason.a.decaro@ua.edu
Jason DeCaro (PhD Emory, 2006) is a biocultural medical and psychological anthropologist and human biologist with interests in human developmental ecology and neuroanthropology. Dr. DeCaro studies the intersection of cultural models, everyday practices, and human physiology in the production of differential well-being across the life course, especially but not exclusively focusing on children.
Major current research projects concern pathways among food insecurity, nutritional status, social status and differential well-being in the United States, Central America and East Africa; the role of daily routines and cultural models in patterns of physical activity among older adults with osteoarthritis; biocultural-linguistic approaches to the science of emotion regulation; and psychobiological moderation of school adjustment in children.
Baili Gall (she/her)
UA PhD Student (Anthropology & Public Health)
bjgall@crimson.ua.edu
I graduated from Indiana University in 2017 with a BS in Human Biology and a minor in Anthropology. Upon graduation, I served as an AmeriCorps VISTA and served low resource communities to decrease the hunger gap in the greater Indianapolis area. This experience piqued my interest in the relationship between food insecurity and child health and widened my knowledge on the existing social inequalities in the United States.
Broadly, my PhD research focuses on food insecurity and child nutritional outcomes within the foster care system. I am particularly interested in how nutritional status may vary dependent on child placement in kin or non-kin foster homes. Moreover, I’m interested in child-centered methodologies that elicit a child's lived experience with food (in)security and their perspectives on the nutritional landscape in which they are reared.
UA PhD Student (Anthropology & Public Health)
bjgall@crimson.ua.edu
I graduated from Indiana University in 2017 with a BS in Human Biology and a minor in Anthropology. Upon graduation, I served as an AmeriCorps VISTA and served low resource communities to decrease the hunger gap in the greater Indianapolis area. This experience piqued my interest in the relationship between food insecurity and child health and widened my knowledge on the existing social inequalities in the United States.
Broadly, my PhD research focuses on food insecurity and child nutritional outcomes within the foster care system. I am particularly interested in how nutritional status may vary dependent on child placement in kin or non-kin foster homes. Moreover, I’m interested in child-centered methodologies that elicit a child's lived experience with food (in)security and their perspectives on the nutritional landscape in which they are reared.
Mandy Guitar (she/her)
UA PhD Student (Anthropology)
aeguitar@crimson.ua.edu
I received a B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Theatre Arts from New Mexico State University (2010) and an M.A. in Psychology from SUNY New Paltz (2013). I also have an M.A. in Biological Anthropology (2015) and a Graduate Certificate in Evolutionary Studies (2017) from Binghamton University. My dissertation research is focused on transgender and nonbinary health in the Deep South. Some of my previous research topics include human olfactory perceptions, competition on social networking sites, and conceptualizations of emotional and sexual infidelity.
UA PhD Student (Anthropology)
aeguitar@crimson.ua.edu
I received a B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Theatre Arts from New Mexico State University (2010) and an M.A. in Psychology from SUNY New Paltz (2013). I also have an M.A. in Biological Anthropology (2015) and a Graduate Certificate in Evolutionary Studies (2017) from Binghamton University. My dissertation research is focused on transgender and nonbinary health in the Deep South. Some of my previous research topics include human olfactory perceptions, competition on social networking sites, and conceptualizations of emotional and sexual infidelity.
Michael Smetana (he/him)
UA PhD Student (Anthropology)
msmetana@crimson.ua.edu
I am a PhD student with a focus in Biocultural Medical Anthropology. My interest in tattooing, as both a cultural and therapeutic practice, led me to the Human Behavioral Ecology Research Group (HBERG). As part of the group, I plan to explore the ritual of tattooing as an embodied experience, and its effects on health and immune response. I received my MSc in Evolution and Human Behavior (2017) from the University of Kent in Canterbury, U.K. My thesis research centered on human-environment interactions, comparing psycho-physiological effects of walking in natural and urban environments among postgraduates in Canterbury. I graduated with a BSc in Biochemistry (2013) from Notre Dame College in my hometown of Cleveland, OH. Between degrees, I worked as a Research Assistant, studying health and physiology in extreme environments, as well as cardiovascular disease states, and remote monitoring technology with the Mayo Clinics Human Integrative and Environmental Physiology Lab. I also freelanced as a research consultant, managed a supported living home for adults living with developmental disabilities, and taught students with autism spectrum diagnoses and emotional/behavioral challenges. My other research interests include:
UA PhD Student (Anthropology)
msmetana@crimson.ua.edu
I am a PhD student with a focus in Biocultural Medical Anthropology. My interest in tattooing, as both a cultural and therapeutic practice, led me to the Human Behavioral Ecology Research Group (HBERG). As part of the group, I plan to explore the ritual of tattooing as an embodied experience, and its effects on health and immune response. I received my MSc in Evolution and Human Behavior (2017) from the University of Kent in Canterbury, U.K. My thesis research centered on human-environment interactions, comparing psycho-physiological effects of walking in natural and urban environments among postgraduates in Canterbury. I graduated with a BSc in Biochemistry (2013) from Notre Dame College in my hometown of Cleveland, OH. Between degrees, I worked as a Research Assistant, studying health and physiology in extreme environments, as well as cardiovascular disease states, and remote monitoring technology with the Mayo Clinics Human Integrative and Environmental Physiology Lab. I also freelanced as a research consultant, managed a supported living home for adults living with developmental disabilities, and taught students with autism spectrum diagnoses and emotional/behavioral challenges. My other research interests include:
- Health systems reform
- Decolonizing anthropology
- Language, emotion and communicating science and public health
- Critically applied biocultural medical anthropology
- Embodied social justice and community engaged research (CEnR)
- Integrative medicine and biomedical translation of ethnomedical practices/systems
- Cultural impacts on health, human evolutionary biology, and the extended evolutionary synthesis (EES)
- Climate change and health, biopolitics, human-animal-environmental interactions and multispecies ecologies