People

Biography

Cornelia Guell is a medical anthropologist specialising in understanding how health behaviours such as healthy eating are shaped by physical, political and social environments, with expertise in qualitative research in public health and stakeholder involvement. Formerly lecturing in public health at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill (2011-2013), she is currently also PI on a study to develop a social approach to behaviour change (Academy of Medical Sciences),, and Co-I on a GCRF MRC-funded project to understand the impacts of community food production initiatives in the Caribbean and South Pacific.

Biography

Olivia Barnett-Naghshineh is an economic anthropologist with a focus on value, gift exchange, gender and markets. She is working on questions of decolonising anthropology alongside research on the impacts of colonisation, globalisation and climate change on food systems.

Biography

Nigel Unwin leads the MRC Epidemiology Unit’s Global Public Health Research initiatives, and is also visiting Professor of Population Health Sciences at the Chronic Disease Research Centre, Tropical Medicine Research Institute, University of the West Indies. Nigel is a public health physician, with an exceptional track record in studying the burden, prevention and control of chronic non-communicable diseases. Much of this work has been in low and middle income country settings. He leads on a range of interdisciplinary research activities such as investigating the relationships between local food production and nutrition and health with partners in the Caribbean and Pacific, and establishing a research network with partners in Africa and the Caribbean to investigate and intervene on the upstream determinants of diet and physical activity.

Biography

Henrice Altink is Professor in Modern History and Co-Director of the Interdisciplinary Global Development Centre (IGDC). She joined the department in 2004. Henrice has been actively involved with the Society for Caribbean Studies (SCS) for many years and is currently an executive member of the Social History Society and deputy editor of Women’s History Review. Henrice’s main research focuses on social inequalities in the Caribbean. She has worked extensively on gender during slavery and in the post-emancipation period and her more recent work focuses on race during the decolonisation period, including the role that race plays in health and medicine.

Biography

Ishtar Govia is a Lecturer in Epidemiology at the Caribbean Institute for Health Research (CAIHR), UWI Mona. She is a Member at Large of the Executive Council of the Caribbean Alliance of National Psychological Associations (CANPA), and co-Chair of the CANPA Publications and Communications Standing Committee, and the CANPA Caribbean Regional Conference of Psychology Standing Committee. She is a member of the INDIGO network of researchers coordinated at the Centre for Global Mental Health, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience at King’s College London, a network that focuses on deepening knowledge about, and reducing, mental illness related stigma and discrimination. She is also a Scholar Affiliate with the Michigan Alzheimer’s Disease Centre.

Biography

Matthew J. Smith is Professor in History and Head, Department of History and Archaeology, The UWI, Mona. His areas of research include Haitian politics, society, and migration. He is the author of the books Liberty, Fraternity, Exile: Haiti and Jamaica After Emancipation (University of North Carolina Press, 2014), and Red and Black in Haiti: Radicalism, Conflict, and Political Change, 1934-1957 (University of North Carolina Press, 2009) which was a winner of the Gordon K and Sybil Lewis prize for best book in Caribbean History from the Caribbean Studies Association. He has also published several articles and book chapters on various aspects of Haitian history and politics.

Biography

Dr Karyn Morrissey is a Senior Lecturer whose research focuses on understanding the impact of socio-economic and environmental inequalities on health outcomes. An economist by background, Karyn has extensive experience in capacity building in lower and middle, income countries. Interested in both Big and Small data, particularly new ways to collect and generate data, Karyn is pursuing innovative methods to engage individuals and communities in research.

Ruth Thurstan has broad interests in research that leads to improving fisheries sustainability and informing marine conservation goals. Her core research examines the magnitude, direction and drivers of changes that have occurred in marine social-ecological systems over decadal to centennial scales.