Professor
Melissa ParkerProfile page
Professor
Global Health and Development
BIO
I am a member of the Department of Global Health and Development. My research builds on a multi-disciplinary training in Human Sciences and a DPhil (which combined methods and approaches current in social and biological anthropology) from Oxford University. Research questions typically emerge from extensive periods of ethnographic fieldwork, and engage with contemporary ideas in social, medical and political anthropology. Where appropriate, findings are used to both critique and enhance public health policies and practice. Topics investigated include: epidemic preparedness and response; mental health and healing in war zones; social and political legacies of mass forced displacement; medical humanitarianism, and biosocial approaches to the control of neglected tropical diseases in Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania.
In 2014, I established the Ebola Response Anthropology Platform with colleagues from Sierra Leone and the UK. This proved a useful model for enabling expertise across the social sciences to usefully inform the delivery of humanitarian assistance, and the Platform now engages with a broader range of issues through the Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform. In 2020 and 2021, I contributed to the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours and the ethnicity subgroup of SAGE.
In 2014, I established the Ebola Response Anthropology Platform with colleagues from Sierra Leone and the UK. This proved a useful model for enabling expertise across the social sciences to usefully inform the delivery of humanitarian assistance, and the Platform now engages with a broader range of issues through the Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform. In 2020 and 2021, I contributed to the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours and the ethnicity subgroup of SAGE.
LONDON SCHOOL OF HYGIENE AND TROPICAL MEDICINE APPOINTMENTS
- Professor of Medical AnthroplogyLondon School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Global Health and Development, England20 Jan 2014 - present
DEGREES
- DPhilOxford University, United Kingdom
- BA Honours in Human SciencesOxford University, United Kingdom
RESEARCH CENTRES
- Health in Humanitarian Crises Centre
- Centre for Epidemic Preparedness and Response
REGIONS & COUNTRIES
- Sierra Leone
- Sudan
- Tanzania
- Uganda
- United Kingdom
- Sub-Saharan Africa (all income levels)
- South Sudan