Medical Anthropologist Joins DGHI Faculty

Kearsley (Karrie) Stewart has joined Duke as Associate Professor of the Practice at the Duke Global Health Institute with a secondary appointment in the Department of Cultural Anthropology.  Stewart came to Duke this month from Northwestern University where she was senior lecturer in medical anthropology and global health and adjunct senior lecturer in the medical school in medical humanities and bioethics.

This semester, she is teaching Global Bioethics (GLHLTH740) in the Master of Science in Global Health.  In 2013-2014, she will teach additional courses in ethics, qualitative research methods, global health humanities and medical anthropology. As part of her DGHI role, she will also enhance global health course offerings for undergraduate students and serve as a faculty mentor for fieldwork projects at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Stewart’s research interests include HIV/AIDS in Africa and the US, and research ethics of clinical trials in Africa. Her dissertation focused on adolescent HIV/AIDS in Uganda using ethnographic interviewing, population-based surveys and biological markers. In conjunction with that work, she implemented the first voluntary HIV rapid testing and counseling clinic in a rural area of Uganda, which led to changes in national policy.  Most recently, she is the co-editor of a special issue of Global Public Health on Global Health Ethics. She recently started a new research project on HIV/AIDS in Cuba.

At Northwestern University, Stewart taught courses in HIV/AIDS, medical anthropology and digital media in Africa.  She also created a new undergraduate minor in global health teaching courses on global health theory, bioethics and gender.  Since 2008, she has led an annual 10-week study abroad program on Public Health in Uganda, and more recently developed a similar program in Cuba.

Stewart consulted as a medical anthropologist for the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to help improve adherence to antiretroviral therapies for newly-diagnosed HIV/AIDS clients. She was a David E. Bell Fellow at the Center for Population and Development Studies at Harvard School of Public Health and was also a Fulbright New Century Scholar.  She is the recipient of research funding from NIMH, NSF, Fulbright and Wenner-Gren. Her video documentary work includes two award-winning films on glass bead artists in Ghana and the US.