Friday, September 11, 2020
//s3.amazonaws.com/skins.funeraltechweb.com/tribute-gestures/Candle4.png
Doug was a wonderful friend and mentor to me for nearly 20 years. We first met when I was an undergraduate student at SUNY Brockport in 2002-2005. His fascinating classes on applied anthropology, culture and health, and the anthropology of AIDS inspired me with a special interest in medical anthropology. In 2009, I started my PhD studies at the University at Buffalo. We reconnected in 2011, when I started a position as an adjunct instructor at SUNY Brockport. The following semester, Doug offered me a position as a research associate at the Society for Medical Anthropology (SMA) where he had just started his presidency. One of my warmest memories of Doug is from our time working together there. When we were in Chicago for the 2013 American Anthropological Association meetings, he could have had dinner with the world’s leaders in anthropology. Instead, he had Subway sandwiches with me, a graduate student. I was nervous about my talk the next day. Doug patiently went through all 25 PowerPoint slides, giving me advice on how to craft a strong conference presentation. He explained which facts were interesting, which ones needed more context, and what he would recommend cutting. When I jokingly pointed out that he was missing dinner with "important" people, he just said “but THIS is important. YOU are important." My talk the following morning went perfectly. I still consider his advice every time I write a lecture. After he retired from SUNY Brockport in 2016, I was honored to teach several of his classes, including "Culture and Health," "Culture and AIDS," "Anthropology of Sex," and "Global Issues" (2016-2019). He will be profoundly missed by all of his former students.
