HD Lecturer
M.A., New Mexico State University 2016; B.A., University of Hawaii, Manoa 2010
Megan Alexander is currently a lecturer in Human Development at Sonoma State University and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Connecticut in the Department of Anthropology. Her dissertation research is untethered from traditional notions of the field site and explores American notions of a “good” death and the increasing digitization of death care through the lens of EOL/death doulas. Her academic and professional interests include, but are not limited to, medical anthropology, end-of-life care, biomedicine, care and caregiving in the United States, hospice practices, and alternative forms of end-of-life care.
Megan completed her master’s degree at New Mexico State University and her undergraduate studies at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. She is a recent recipient of a Ruth Landes Memorial Research Grant, and a former recipient of the NIH NIGMS NMSU Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE) Fellowship. She was a CRI-G/SURP Summer Intern in the Public Health Sciences Division Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA.
Presenter: Turbulent Structure and Changing Agency in Medical Education: Engaging New Pedagogical Modalities Society for Applied Anthropology, 79th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR 2019
Presenter: Death Doula Training and Practice: Re-Imagining care at the Juncture of biomedicine, ritual, and experience American Anthropological Association, 117th Annual Meeting, San Jose, CA 2019
Presenter: Learning Culture in Residency: Training of Family Medicine Physicians in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands American Anthropological Association, 114th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO 2018
Presenter: Quality of Life: A qualitative examination of residents’ training in older adult end of life care AAGE Invited Panel, Society for Applied Anthropology, 76th Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC 2016
Poster: “Where should we begin?” CBPR Collaborations and Research Targeting
Invited poster, University Research Council, 15th Annual Research and Creative Activities Fair, New Mexico State University Las Cruces, NM 2015
Invited poster, 2015 SWIHDR Conference, Southwest Institute for Health Disparities Research, New Mexico State University Las Cruces, NM 2015
Presenter: Learning “Culture” In Medical Education Society for Applied Anthropology, 75th Annual Meeting, Pittsburg, PA Presenter 2015
Presenter: Evaluation of Cultural Competency in Graduate Medical Education Association for Anthropology and Gerontology, Workshop Conference 2015 Health Disparities in Aging, Miami, FL 2015
Co-author: "Perspectives of Community Advisory Board Members in a Community-Academic Partnership." Journal of health care for the poor and underserved 29, no. 4 (2018): 1529. (with Sigolène Ortega, Katherine J. Briant, Sarah Hohl, and Beti Thompson)