Andrea Freidus

Dr. Andrea Freidus is an assistant professor of anthropology at UNC Charlotte. She specializes in applied and medical anthropology. She also has an MPH in global public health. She has worked in Latin America, Africa, and South Florida. Her research has looked at the rise of grassroots transnational organizations targeting aid to orphans in Malawi, southern Africa. She explores the emerging global connections among volunteers, donors, development workers, program organizers and the directors associated with these organizations and the children they serve.

She has also worked on projects that included an examination of risky sexual behavior between female long term tourists and local men in Monteverde, Costa Rica, farmworker experiences with eye injury and access to medical care in Immokalee, Florida, and community experiences with evacuation and relocation in and around Mount Tungurahua in Ecuador. Her most current research examines the rise of volunteer tourism with orphans and the proliferation of International Medical Experiences (whereby undergraduates, medical students, and residents volunteer in health programs in the resource poor contexts).