Award Committees
Each year, the SMA hosts a Business Meeting and Awards Ceremony at the AAA Annual Meetings to honor the winners of SMA and SIG prizes. Below is a list of the 2019 awardees.
The Eileen Basker Memorial Prize is awarded annually for a significant contribution in research on gender and health (to scholars from any discipline or nation) for a book, article, film or PhD within the preceding three years. The 2019 Eileen Basker Memorial Prize was awarded to Rebecca G. Martínez (University of Missouri) for her book Marked Women: The Cultural Politics of Cervical Cancer in Venezuela (Stanford University Press, 2018).
The Steven Polgar Professional Paper Prize is awarded to a medical anthropologist for the best paper published in the SMA’s journal Medical Anthropology Quarterly (MAQ). The 2019 recipient is Mara Buchbinder (The University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill) for her paper “Choreographing Death: A Social Phenomenology of Medical Aid-in-Dying in the United States” in Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 32(4):481-497.
The MASA Graduate Student Mentorship Award is given annually to a senior or mid-career scholar and honors career-long excellence in graduate student teaching and mentoring, especially during the phases of MA and PhD fieldwork and thesis or dissertation writing. The 2019 prize was awarded to Lesley Sharp (Columbia University).
The New Millennium Book Award was established by the Society for Medical Anthropology to recognize and promote excellence in medical anthropology, broadly defined.The New Millennium Book Award is given to the author whose work is judged to be the most significant and potentially influential contribution to medical anthropology. Books of exceptional courage and potential impact beyond the field will be given special consideration. The 2019 winner is Omar Dewachi (Rutgers University) for his book Ungovernable Life: Mandatory Medicine and Statecraft (Stanford University Press, 2017).
The W.H.R. Rivers Undergraduate Student Paper Prize is given for an outstanding paper in medical anthropology written by an undergraduate student. The 2019 winner is Natalie Nogueira (Harvard College) for her paper “The Pharmaceuticalization of Therapeutic Jurisprudence”.
Hazel Weidman Award for Exemplary Service to the Society for Medical Anthropology established in 2017, is presented every two years to a member who has, over the course of a career, demonstrated extraordinary service to the profession. Any SMA member with a long-standing record of service to the Society is eligible for this award. The 2019 recipient is Alan Harwood (University of Massachusetts Boston).
George Foster Practicing Medical Anthropology Award, first given in 2005, recognizes those who have made significant contributions to applying theory and methods in medical anthropology, particularly in diverse contexts, to multidisciplinary audiences, and with some impact on policy. The 2019 winner is Sandra D. Lane (Syracuse University).
The Student Travel Award 2019 recipient was Austin Wiley Duncan (University of Arizona) for his critical work on Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBIs) in the US.
Graduate Student Paper Prize 2019 recipient was Laura Meek (University of Hong Kong) for her paper “Still, Shit, Targets: The New York Times on Antibiotic Use in Kenya”.
SMA Special Interest Groups (SIGS) also grant a range of awards. The 2019 prizes were awarded as follows:
The Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) and Integrative Medicine (IM) Graduate Student Paper Prize
Recipient: Angela Aguilar (University of California, Berkeley)
Paper Title: “Envisioning “Loving Care” in Impermanent Healing Spaces: Sacred and Political Organizing Towards Decolonial Health/Care in Oakland, California”
Alcohol, Drugs, and Tobacco Study Group (ADTSG) 2019 Graduate Student Paper Prize
Recipient: Sarah Brothers (Yale University)
Paper Title: “A Good ‘Doctor’ is Hard to Find: Assessing uncredentialed expertise in assisted injection”
Alcohol, Drugs, and Tabacco Study Group (ADTSG) 2019 Graduate Student Travel Award
Recipient: Breanne Casper (University of South Florida)
Paper Title: “Unscripted Change: A Critical Analysis of Rehabilitation Rhetoric in ‘Natural Recovery’ in Tampa”
Disability Research Interest Group (DRIG) Travel Awards
Recipient: Emily Lim Rogers (New York University)
Paper Title: “Patient Activism: Thinking with Brain Fog, Symptom Talk, and Exhaustion”
Recipient: Shruti Vaidya (University of Chicago)
Paper Title: “Bodies and Behaviors: Approaches Towards Sexuality in a Special Education in Context in India”
Dying and Bereavement Special Interest Group Doctoral Student Paper Award
Recipient: Aalyia Feroz Ali Sadruddin (Yale University)
Paper Title: “Death in (Extra) Ordinary Times: Insights from Rwanda’s Elderly Generation”
Dying and Bereavement Special Interest Group Emerging Scholar Paper Award
Recipient: Anneliese Mills (University of Toronto)
Paper Title: “A Good Death and the Meaning of Care: Perspectives of Nurses, Pharmacists, and Social Workers on Medical Assistance in Dying”
Critical Anthropology of Global Health (CAGH) Study Group Rudolf Virchow Award
Professional Category: Kyrstin Mallon Andrews (University of California, Irvine)
Paper Title: “Catching air: Risk and embodied ocean health among Dominican diver fishermen”
Honorable Mentions for Professional Category: Ashish Premkumar (Northwestern University); Jennifer Kerns (UC San Francisco); Megan J. Huchko (Duke University)
Paper Title: “A Résumé for the Baby”: Biosocial Precarity and Care of Substance-Using, Pregnant Women in San Francisco”
Graduate Student Category: Kyrstin Mallon Andrews (University of California, Irvine)
Paper Title: “Catching air: Risk and embodied ocean health among Dominican diver fishermen”
AIDS and Anthropology Research Group (AARG) Clark Taylor Professional Paper Prize
Recipient: Haochu Li (Shandong University)
Paper Title: “Mediation Analysis of Peer Norms, Self-Efficacy, and Condom Use Among Chinese Men Who Have Sex with Men: A Parallel Process Latent Growth Curve Model”
AIDS and Anthropology Research Group (AARG) Graduate Student Paper Prize
Receipt: Sarah Brothers (Yale University)
Paper Title: “A ‘Good’ Doctor is Hard to Find: Assessing uncredentialed expertise in assisted injection”
Anthropology of Mental Health Interest Group Annual Travel Award
Recipient: Emma Backe (George Washington University)