Mary Cameron

Professor
Department of Anthropology

Research - Mary Cameron is Professor of Anthropology and a medical anthropologist whose research on the widely popular South Asian human health knowledge system known as Ayurvedic medicine holds humanistic, pragmatic, and scientific interest, and addresses important health, social, and environmental justice issues for the nearly two billion people living in the subcontinent. She focuses on the low-income and multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural country of Nepal (with comparative work in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and India). In the current period of rapid medical modernization and the subsequent reduction of official support for traditional medicines globally, Professor Cameron's research and teaching address questions of community and individual rights to cultural, medical, and natural resources diversity that Ayurvedic medicine provides people across South Asia. Professor Cameron has received numerous grants and fellowships to support her research, including two Fulbright fellowships, a Council of American Overseas Research Center multi-country grant, and most recently a Lifelong Learning Society current affairs fellowship. She expects that her second book, Three Fruits: Nepali Ayurvedic Doctors on Nature, Health and Medical Modernization (Cornell U. Press), will be published by late spring 2016. In addition to numerous prior articles and book chapters from this ongoing research, Professor Cameron also plans to complete her third book by then, titled Trading Health: Biodiversity Conservation and Ayurvedic Medicine in Nepal. Several anthropology undergraduate and graduate students work with Professor Cameron on various aspects of data analysis and literature review related to this work.