The intersection of my interests in medicine and anthropology led to my studies in Latin America, where I currently work with Aymara speaking migrants in the barrios of El Alto, Bolivia - a city of miners and peasants resting above the capital, La Paz. Here I continue to investigate how migrants' ideas and beliefs about health change with migration to the city and the effects of urbanization on their health care decision-making. My most recent findings suggest that the notions of community as understood by the local residents were diametrically opposed to the definition used by health clinics implemented by USAID funded programs. Based upon my analysis of the situation in El Alto, I consulted doctors, administrators, and other health officials about the opposing perceptions of community and how these led to not only distrust of the clinic within the population, but how the clinic was understood by the locals to be a source of political tension.

During my return trip to El Alto in the summer of 2000 I distributed copies of my dissertation to offices, organizations, and persons who were instrumental in helping me conduct the research. Not only was I looking for funding to properly translate the work into Spanish, it was an opportunity to explain and discuss the overall results with those who were part of the work itself. People became more enthralled and insisted that the book be published, as they acknowledged it is the only work of its kind on health in El Alto and its discussion of the role community plays in medical care. Not only were the residents of El Alto interested in my thesis, but the doctors and nurses agreed that the work could help explain how migrants perceive biomedical facilities and services. Throughout this process I continued researching the role of local corner stores in the city and their provision of inexpensive over-the-counter medications to the residents. Primarily, my interest focuses upon how residents use and combine these biomedical remedies with their indigenous teas, poultices and beliefs, the results of which illustrate the dynamism urbanization plays in migrant communities. I presented this work at the American Anthropological Association meetings in San Francisco, 2000.

After earning my Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh in December of 1998, I held a NCI Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Texas - Houston Health Science Center, School of Public Health (UTSPH) in the Center for Health Promotion Research and Development (CHPRD). There I was a member of a team focused on better understanding how immigrant Hispanics in Houston identify, treat and manage asthma. I provided anthropological insight and qualitative methodologies to studies being conducted in the CHPRD. My skills as a qualitative researcher were important in conducting interviews and analysis, as I developed a methodology for the research to follow and implemented the use of NUD*IST as part of the analysis. Although this research was integral to my position, I also emphasized teaching as a part of my postdoctoral experience. My time as a Post-doc stimulated my interest and work in Public Health and expanded my knowledge of applied health work to include the epidemiology, policy, design, intervention and implementation of health related programs. Public Health broadened my awareness of the aims of health (biomedical) related research and how such research is conducted around the world.

During the summer of 2001 I worked with Dr. Janice Harper of the University of Houston to develop a research project investigating the relationship between the environment and health in underprivileged neighborhoods in south Houston. This project has now become an ethnography on air pollution in the city. At the same time Dr. Harper and I developed and initiated a field school for undergraduate students, who worked in the same neighborhoods on a weekly basis. I had particular interest in Spanish speaking residents and those who had immigrated to Houston from Latin America. During the voyage on Semester at Sea I found new possibilities for future research in Cambodia and South Africa focusing on urbanization and how this process affects health seeking behavior.

In terms of scholarship, I have a co-authored paper concerning community and health being published in Medical Anthropology Quarterly this summer and have another one accepted by Visual Anthropology, to be published in early 2003. I am in the process of publishing other papers related to my dissertation research concerning community, migration and health in El Alto, Bolivia in both Ethnology and Human Organization. I have also begun to distribute copies of my dissertation to academic presses and plan to rewrite and edit the monograph for future publication in the United States as well as a Spanish version in Bolivia. Complementary to that academic endeavor, an exhibit of my photographs on El Alto, urbanization and migration titled "Sueños Urbanos / Urban Dreams: Searching for a better life in Bolivia" was on display at the Houston Museum of Natural Science from March until August of 2000, and has begun touring museums across the country and in Latin America through 2003. Last fall my paper on visual anthropology was presented at the AAAs in Washington, D. C. while I was on Semester at Sea. Last month I traveled to Atlanta to present a paper on the environment and health in El Alto at the Society for Applied Anthropology meetings. A week later at the Bolivian Studies Association meetings in New Orleans, I gave a paper on the notion of a "post-hybrid" peasant/migrant in El Alto and the coping strategies developed for survival in the city. I am a member of a panel for the AAAs this fall in New Orleans called "Rethinking the Andean Popular Spectacle," my paper explores the role of political negotiation in the everyday lives of migrant Aymara residents as they compete with each other for jobs and adapt to the urban milieu.

Currently, I am writing a National Endowment for the Humanities grant for funds to help me complete the ethnographic manuscript on my work in El Alto. I have also applied for a Fulbright Scholarship to assist the National Ethnographic and Folklore Museum (MUSEF) in La Paz, Bolivia as a visual anthropologist. I would very much like to develop a program for undergraduates to gain international experience, and would embrace the opportunity to take them to Bolivia, or other Latin American countries, where they could improve their ethnographic skills and begin to understand different cultures first hand.