Susan Erikson
- Assistant Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences
Email: susan_erikson@sfu.ca
Tel: 778-782-8162
Office: BLU 11510
Education
- BA, English and Education, Boston College
- MA, Anthropology, University of Colorado-Boulder
- PhD, Anthropology, University of Colorado-Boulder
Biography
Dr. Erikson is an anthropologist who has worked in Africa, Europe, Central Asia, and North America. As an academic, Dr. Erikson combines her practical experience with a critical study of the relations of power informing global health tableaus. During a first career in international development, she worked in hospitals, rural clinics and schools in Sierra Leone providing primary health and education services. Dr. Erikson has worked for or with many US government departments and agencies, including the US Congress, US Departments of State and Agriculture, and the US Agency for International Development. Dr. Erikson is the founding director of Global Health Affairs at the Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, and in 2004 was voted Best Professor at the Korbel School. In 2007, she joined the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University, where in 2012 she was awarded the Graduate Teaching and Mentorship Excellence Award.
Research Interests
Dr. Erikson has conducted ethnographic research on imaging technologies, knowledge production, expertise, governmentality, and the political economy of credibility. She recently concluded a 10-year research project (1998-2008) in Germany, and is close to completing a book manuscript, Expecting Expertise: Obstetrical Business in Germany. Her research has been funded by the Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the US National Science Foundation (NSF), the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the American Association of University Women (AAUW), the Institute for International Education (IIE), Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), and others.
In Spring 2013, Dr. Erikson returns to Sierra Leone to commence a project on the production, use, and travel of health statistics across multiple sectors. Her aim is to contribute not only primary ethnographic research data and analysis on Big Data across the digital divide, but also to theoretical and ethnographic approaches to bureaucratic exegesis of power in global health.
More information can be found on http://www.sfu.ca/~sle3/
Supervisory Topics
I am interested in supervising students interested in using anthropological methods to explore global health politics, biotechnologies, knowledge production, information technologies and the digital divide as well as those students already working or interested in Africa.
