Area of Interest:

Mental health, institutions & de-institutionalization, transnational flows of psychiatric information, India.

Research & Activities:

Entered the program in 2003.

Education: BA Anthropology, University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

Research Interests: In my previous life, I was a psychiatric social worker at a crisis clinic in Seattle. In addition, I have worked on a jail psychiatric unit, and in various community-based settings including: mentally ill ex-offender rehabilitation, homeless shelters, vocational rehabilitation programs, residential treatment centers, recreational therapy and private consulting and treatment for exceptionally difficult situations. For six years, I owned and operated a business that primarily employed individuals with wide variety of disabilities.

My broad research interests are in the culture of mental health care systems in India and the United States. It is my hope to begin with archival research in India from 1947- present. Tentative ethnographic projects may focus on: the transnational flows of psychiatric knowledge, practices and use of psychiatric medications; de-institutionalization movements in India; mental health policy development and implementation in a multilingual multicultural state; and ethnographic study on the education of training mental health professionals and or para-professionals.