Deirdre Guthrie, PhD

she/her/hers

Dr. Deirdre Guthrie is a cultural and medical anthropologist with a focus in gender studies who has spent the last decade working on a range of social medicine and organizational change leadership research projects in partnership with healthcare professionals on the frontlines. These projects included the launch of the ALIVE Project, a study that integrated faith and medicine and addressed health disparities, conducted by African-American church leaders and researchers at Rush University Medical Center, as well as a three-year study with early medical professionals at Partners In Health who work in the remote mountain communities of Chiapas, Mexico. Dr. Guthrie published her accounts of this work in the Handbook of Ethnography in Healthcare Research by Routledge Press. Most recently she has served as the director for wellbeing and joy in practice for nursing and allied health professionals at Ann & Robert Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago. 

At home, Deirdre loves everyday rituals with friends and family, particularly embracing the changing seasons outdoors near Lake Michigan, as well as staying connected to rituals that remind people to celebrate and acknowledge the seasons of our own human lives. As a teaching professor with expertise in burnout and wellbeing science, she believes it’s important to help students balance the weight of social responsibility with the ability to look up, love, laugh, and lift.

Select Publications  

Guthrie, D., & Lynch, E. (2020). The ALIVE! Project Understanding the intersection between faith and soul food using ethnographic methods (1st ed.). Handbook of Ethnography in Healthcare Research. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429320927

Guthrie, D. (2020). Using Ethnography to Understand how Pasantes ‘walk with’ their Patients (1st ed.). Ethnographic Approaches to Health and Wellbeing Research (1st ed.). Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Handbook-of-Ethnography-in-Healthcare-Research/Hackett-Hayre/p/book/9780367336332

Guthrie, D. (2020). The Lived Experience of Dignity. The Practice of Human Development and Dignity. The University of Notre Dame Press. https://undpress.nd.edu/9780268108694/the-practice-of-human-development-and-dignity/

Guthrie, D. (2019). Birthing the Mother as Social Scientist. Mothering from the Field The Impact of Motherhood on Site-Based Research (pp. 222-238). Rutgers University Press. https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/mothering-from-the-field/9781978800564/

Guthrie, D. (2017). Haitian migrant borderwork in a Dominican coastal town. Migration Studies, 6(2), 251–278. https://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnx045

Current Research Interests

Wellbeing at work for caregiving professionals
Global health


Education

  • PhD, Anthropology, University of Illinois, Chicago
  • MA, Medical Anthropology, University of Illinois, Chicago
  • BA, Community Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz
Deirdre Guthrie, PhD

SIT Study Abroad

Visiting Faculty

IHP HEALTH AND COMMUNITY: Globalization, Culture, and Care

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