Emily Mendenhall is a medical anthropologist and Professor in the Science, Technology, and International Affairs (STIA) Program in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Dr. Mendenhall has published widely in anthropology, medicine, and public health. In 2017, she led a Series of articles on Syndemics in The Lancet to challenge how we understand concurrent epidemics to cluster, interact, and result from politics, climate, and society.  This work was influenced by more than a decade of research about how people perceive, experience, and embody trauma and diabetes through personal stories. This culminated in the book Rethinking Diabetes: Entanglements with Trauma, Poverty, and HIV (2019, Cornell). She is also the author of Syndemic Suffering: Social Distress, Depression, and Diabetes among Mexican Immigrant Women (2012) and co-editor of Global Mental Health: Anthropological Perspectives (2015). In 2017, Dr. Mendenhall was awarded the George Foster Award for Practicing Medical Anthropology by the Society for Medical Anthropology.

Dr. Mendenhall’s newest book is Unmasked: COVID, Community, and the Case of Okoboji (preorder by clicking here). 

In 2021, Dr. Mendenhall joined the helm of launching Social Science and Medicine—Mental Health (SSMMH), with Dr. Alexander Tsai and Dr. Brandon Kohrt, as co-Editors-in-Chief.