As faculty in the Joint Program in Medical Anthropology (UCSF/UC Berkeley), I am committed to making a contribution to knowledge and insight about the interface between health and the harm that arises from that which cannot be strictly called biological. I have published on a range of topics, including ethnomedicine and global health, the politics of medical knowledge, post disaster climate harm, metrics, safe motherhood, social justice, agrochemical industries and academic capitalism. My research has been funded by the NIH, NIMC, NICHHD, NSF, The Wenner Gren Foundation, The Fulbright Foundation, and the UC Humanities Research Institute. I received The Basham Medal, the Distinction in Teaching Award, and some of my books have been shortlisted for awards. I was editor for Medical Anthropology Quarterly, and have served on the Editorial Boards for several Medical and Cultural Anthropology journals. I co-edit the book series with Duke University Press called Critical Global Health (with Joao Beihl). Alongwith numerous peer reviewed articles, I have authored or co-authored 9 books, including:
Tigers of the Snow and Other Virtual Sherpas (Princeton 2006)
Doctors for Democracy: The Role of Health Professionals in the Nepal Revolution (Cambridge 1998)
Sex In Development: Science, Sexuality and Morality in Global Perspective (with Stacy L. Pigg, editors, Duke 2005)
Medicine Between Science and Religion: Explorations on Tibetan Grounds (with Sienna Craig and Mona Schrempf, editors, Berghahn Press 2010)
Markets of Sorrow, Labors of Faith: New Orleans in the Wake of Katrina (Duke 2014)
Metrics: What Counts in Global Health (Duke University Press, 2017)
What's Making Our Children Sick?(with Michelle Perro, co-authors, Chelsea Green Publishers, 2018)
Glyphosate and the Swirl: An Agrochemical on the Move (Duke, 2023)
Arc of Interference: Anthropology for Worlds on Edge (with Joao Biehl, editors, Duke 2023)