BIOGRAPHY

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I am an anthropologist investigating the causes of health inequalities and formulating strategies to promote environmental and human health.

My mission is to identify the pathways creating global health disparities and to use this scientific knowledge for action to improve human and ecological well-being. 

This trajectory began when I visited a Shuar community in the Ecuadorian Amazon when I was 16 years old. During this visit, indigenous community members told me that they were concerned about their health and well-being as the highways being built on the edge of the rainforest were creating threats to their culture and livelihoods. 

Since this visit, I have dedicated my studies and career to examining how environmental and cultural changes influence health. Beginning as an undergraduate, I investigated stress biology at Johns Hopkins University and graduated in 2008 with a B.A. in Behavioral Biology with honors. That year, I was awarded a grant from the Johns Hopkins Program in Latin American studies and conducted a project identifying common health issues in indigenous communities and the local medicinal plants that treated them in the Manu Biosphere in the southern Peruvian Amazon. 

An interest in ethnobotany and indigenous health led me to pursue a Ph.D. in Anthropology at Northwestern University beginning in 2009. Over the next few years, I completed leadership trainings, conducted research, and filmed documentaries in indigenous communities in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru. In 2015 I completed my doctoral studies, which resulted in a range of publications on the pathways creating vulnerability to poor health in the Peruvian Amazon.

The need to integrate my research with environmental justice initiatives led me to a postdoctoral fellowship at The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, where I worked with teams combining science, education, and conservation action in the Andes-Amazon region of South America and in Chicago’s urban neighborhoods. 

In 2016, I stepped back from full-time work to have my children. However, I used this time to hone my pedagogical skills in a variety contexts. This included teaching courses in anthropology, global health, and environmental justice at Salve Regina University, University of Massachusetts Boston, and The College of the Holy Cross. I also stayed active with my research and publications and was awarded a Knowledge Frontiers: International Interdisciplinary Research grant from the British Academy to begin my next major research project, investigating the relationship between water insecurity and gender-based violence in Peru and Indonesia. 

In the Fall of 2021, I joined the Department of Anthropology at Loyola University Chicago (LUC) as an Assistant Professor of Biological Anthropology and the Director of the Laboratory for Human Health and History (HHH Lab). I am teaching courses such as "Sex, Science and Anthropological Inquiry" (ANTH 106) and "Social Science and Epidemics" (ANTH 362) and continue working with 

 international research teams on investigations of human health, water insecurity, and climate change. In the last year, I received a HWISE-RCN Collaborator Accelerator Grant and a LUC-INSPIRED Micro-grant to support this work. 

In terms of research, this April, two LUC undergraduate students (Aman Kothadia and Natalie Archdeacon) will join me for fieldwork in Peru. This work is be being generously supported by LUC's College of Arts and Sciences, School of Social Work, School of Public Health, the Department of Anthropology, and the Program in Bioethics. 

If you are a student or researcher interested in any of these topics, please do reach out at paulaskyetallman@gmail.com.