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I teach anthropology and environmental studies at Haveford College, just outside of Philly. Currently, I'm holed up in a cabin in the Adirondacks in upstate New York with several family members, including my spouse and 4 year old daughter and 3 dogs. I started working on disasters by accident, when one day in 2001 I was walking to class at NYU and saw the World Trade Center buildings on flames. I have known Kim for a few year and I contacted her to connect with folks around Covid-19 and its imacts.

I'm particularly intersted in issues of communal grief, mourning, and bereavement. Also, I'm interested in the religious response to Covid-19.

When administering healthcare or combating epidemics, there's often an unaddressed social factor. Far more often, the focus remains on the scientific and biological aspects of the disease without delving into the social circumstances surrounding its prevalence. Healthcare typically narrows the scope to just medical intervention, instead of looking at the overarching conditions. Farmer and his colleagues give several examples of successful bio-social interventions; these methods allow physicians and healthcare workers to successfully treat patients in all aspects of the disease. Moreover, they contend that treating epidemics in this way helps to prevent the manifestation of social inequalities in healthcare.

The authors are Stephen Collier, PhD and Andrew Lakoff, PhD. Both hold associate professor positions-- the former at New University in NYC and the latter at USC Dornsife. Lakoff's research and publications seem to focus primarily on public health, global medicine, and medical anthropology. Collier, conversely, seems to primarily work on projects pertaining to government structure and its effects on human life. These include publications on economics, environment, historical, and biopolitics.