Holmes Wins the Margaret Mead Award

UC San Francisco’s Seth Holmes, MD, PhD, has won the Margaret Mead Award, which is presented to a younger scholar for a particular accomplishment, such as a book, film, monograph, or service, which interprets anthropological data and principles in ways that make them meaningful to a broadly concerned public.

The award, offered jointly by the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA), is designed to recognize a person clearly and integrally associated with research and/or practice in anthropology. The awardee's activity will exemplify skills in broadening the impact of anthropology -- skills for which Margaret Mead was admired widely.

“I am honored to be listed among many important anthropologists whose work has had a broad impact in anthropology and beyond on public opinion and policy,” said Holmes, a UCSF alumnus who is currently an assistant professor of the UCSF-UC Berkeley Joint Medical Anthropology program and the Department of Public Health and Medical Anthropology at UC Berkeley. “I feel humbled and grateful to be recognized as doing work that has an impact in anthropology and beyond on broad publics.”

The Margaret Mead Award, initiated by the Society for Applied Anthropology in 1979, and awarded jointly with the American Anthropological Society since 1983, continues to celebrate the tradition of bringing anthropology to bear on wider social and cultural issues.

Holmes is a cultural anthropologist and physician whose work focuses broadly on social hierarchies, health inequalities, and the ways in which such inequalities are naturalized and normalized in society and in health care. He completed his PhD in Anthropology at UC Berkeley, his MD at UCSF, his Internal Medicine Residency at the University of Pennsylvania and his Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholars Program at Columbia University.

An article from his research won the Rudolf Virchow Award from the Society for Medical Anthropology and his book won the Society for the Anthropology of Work Book Award, the New Millennium Book Award from the Society for Medical Anthropology, and the Association for Humanist Sociology Book Award.

Holmes is Martin Sisters Endowed Chair Assistant Professor in the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and the Graduate Program in Medical Anthropology.  He is Co-Director of the MD/PhD Track in Medical Anthropology coordinated between UCSF and UC Berkeley and Director of the Berkeley Center for Social Medicine.

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