Vincanne Adams, Ph.D.

Professor, Department of Anthropology, History and Social Medicine, UCSF

Vincanne Adams, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Anthropology, History and Social Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. She is the UCSF Director of the UCSF/UC Berkeley joint PhD program in Medical Anthropology, and Vice-Chair of the Department.  She received her PhD from the University of California at Berkeley and received tenure as associate professor at Princeton University in 1999, joining the faculty at UCSF thereafter.  

Vincanne has wide ranging research interests in international health, women’s health and development, traditional medical systems of Asia, social disruption and the politics of health care.  She is author of Tigers of the Snow and other Virtual Sherpas (Princeton University Press), Doctors for Democracy: Health Professionals in the Nepal Revolution of 1990 (Cambridge University Press) and Sex and Development: Science, Sexuality and Morality in Global Perspective (with Stacy Leigh Pigg) (Duke University Press). 

Vincanne teaches in the Graduate Program in Medical Anthropology, the UCSF School of Medicine, the Joint Medical Program (with UC Berkeley), and the Master’s Program in Global Health.  Her extensive publications in International Health and Medical Anthropology focus on the health cultures of Nepal, Tibet and China.  She has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Fulbright Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Aging and National Institute of Mental Health.  She continues to conduct research on Global Health Diplomacy, Science and Health Development, and the Health Consequences of Disaster and Recovery both in Asia and the United States.   

Scientific Advisory Board