Lauren Carruth

Professor Lauren Carruth is a medical anthropologist specializing in humanitarian assistance, global health, food security, refugees, and the Horn of Africa.

Professor Carruth leads the Environmental Sustainability and Global Health Thematic Area within SIS.

Lauren Carruth focuses on four research areas: (1) labor hierarchies and inequities within the humanitarian industry, (2) global health diplomacy and the social and political work of clinical care in emergencies, (3) the relationship between food insecurity, medical insecurity, and diabetes, and (4) emerging zoonotic diseases in the Horn of Africa.

Dr. Carruth's 2021 book, "Love and Liberation: Humanitarian Work in Ethiopia's Somali Region," was published by Cornell University Press.

Her research has also been published in the journals BMJ, The Lancet, Social Science & Medicine, Disasters, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Culture Medicine & Psychiatry, The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Global Public Health, Scientific American, and the Washington Post.

Prior to arriving at American University, Prof. Carruth was a postdoctoral scholar at Princeton University in the Global Health and Health Policy Program, and at George Washington University in the Elliott School of International Affairs. Between 2002 and 2007 she worked for the UN World Food Program in Ethiopia, UNICEF in Ethiopia, and the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University.