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Thomas McDade

Carlos Montezuma Professor, Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research

PhD Emory 1999
Curriculum Vitae
RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS

Human Biology; Population Health; Biosocial Perspectives on Health and Human Development; Ecological Immunology; Stress; Health Inequities; Laboratory Methods.

 
BIOGRAPHY

Thomas McDade is the Carlos Montezuma Professor of Anthropology and Faculty Fellow of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University.  He is also a Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), and co-director of the CIFAR Child and Brain Development Program. He is a biological anthropologist and population health scientist, and has conducted research on how social and ecological contexts shape human biology and health in diverse community-based settings around the world, including Bolivia, Ecuador, Kenya, Mexico, Samoa, the Philippines, and the US.  Much of this work focuses on the developmental origins of social inequities in health, and advancing understanding of the complex associations among environments, inflammation, and disease over the life course.  The development and application of minimally-invasive biomarker methods for studying human physiology and health in non-clinical settings has been central to this effort.  McDade's work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and he was a 2002 recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).  In 2021 he was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences as well as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

 
RECENT COURSES TAUGHT
  • 221   Social and Health Inequalities
  • 314   Human Growth & Development
  • 401   Logic of Inquiry, Biological Anthropology
  • 490   Human Population Biology
  • 432   Advanced Research Design and Proposal Writing
  • 430   Integrative Seminar in Society, Biology, and Health
SELECT PUBLICATIONS, PRESENTATIONS, AND CONFERENCES

Download a complete CV.

For an up-to-date list of publications please visit Dr. McDade’s Google Scholar page.