Cornelia Ann (Nina) Kammerer
Heller School for Social Policy and Management
Brandeis University
P.O. Box 549110, MS 035
Waltham, MA 02454-9110
kammerer@brandeis.edu
(781) 736-2940
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Cultural anthropology. Medical anthropology, gender and sexuality. AIDS. Southeast Asia. United States.
Background and Description
Cornelia Ann (Nina) Kammerer is a cultural anthropologist and public health researcher. Since 1998, she has been Lead Evaluator for one of nine sites in a federally funded study of the effectiveness of integrated, trauma-informed services for women with co-occurring mental health and substance abuse disorders and a history of physical and/or sexual abuse, as well as of a sub-study of age-appropriate, skill-building interventions for these women's children. She is also evaluating the effectiveness of a federally funded project providing family-focused and trauma-informed case management for women who are parenting and homeless. Dr. Kammerer has taught at MIT, Vassar, Smith, and Hampshire College. From 1997-2004, she was a Senior Researcher at Health and Addictions Research, Inc., a Boston-based non-profit organization specializing in research, evaluation, and quality improvement consulting in behavioral health. After training in anthropology as an undergraduate at Barnard College and a graduate student at the University of Chicago, Dr. Kammerer conducted fieldwork among the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Akha minority of highland Thailand. Her doctoral research focused on the intersection of kinship, ritual, and gender, while her postdoctoral research focused on social change, including Christianization and urban migration. In 1993, she served as Principal Investigator on a study, funded by the American Foundation for AIDS Research, of sociocultural risk and protective factors for HIV/AIDS among four highland minorities in Thailand. To strengthen her knowledge of epidemiology and biostatistics, Dr. Kammerer obtained a master’s degree from Boston University School of Public Health in 1997. She has published articles and book chapters on asymmetric marriage alliance, Christian conversion, ethnic identity, and Thai government policies and practices towards highland minorities. With Dr. Nicola Tannenbaum, she is co-editor of two volumes on religion, published in the Yale University Southeast Asian Studies monograph series: Merit and Blessing in Mainland Southeast Asia in Comparative Perspective (1996) and Founders' Cults in Southeast Asia: Ancestors, Polity, and Identity (2002). In addition to publications on HIV/AIDS in Thailand, she is co-author of two book chapters on HIV/AIDS risk, prevention, and care among transgenders in the United States. Currently, her writing focuses on the study design, implementation, and findings of the cross-site study of the effectiveness of trauma-informed services. Her interests include the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods and the participation of “consumers” in health research.