The UConn Department of Anthropology mourns the passing of Professor Emeritus Merrill Singer.
Professor Singer joined the department in 2007 after serving for 25 years as Director of Research, among other leadership roles at the Hispanic Health Council in Hartford, Connecticut. A prolific researcher, dedicated community organizer, and renowned critical medical anthropologist, Professor Singer’s publications include 30 books and hundreds of academic articles on the impact of structural and political determinants on health and health inequity, including published work on critical medical anthropology, applied anthropology, syndemics, climate change, environmental health, infectious disease, and substance use and addiction, among other topics. Among his books are Unhealthy Health Policy (2004, with Arachu Castro), Introduction to Syndemics (2009), Global Health: An Anthropological Perspective (2013, one of multiple books with UConn Professor Emerita Pamela Erickson), Stigma Syndemics: New Directions in Biosocial Health (2017, with UConn PhD alums Bayla Ostrach and Shir Lerman Ginzburg), Social Justice and Medical Practice: Life History of a Physician of Social Medicine (2017, with UConn undergraduate alum Rebecca Allen), COVID-19 Syndemics and the Global South: A World Divided (2024, with Inayat Ali and UConn PhD alum Nicola Bulled), and most recently The Anthropology of Human and Planetary Health: An Ecosyndemic Approach (2025) and Introducing Health Anthropology: A Discipline in Action (2025, with Hans Baer and Debbi Long), both just published in March.
Professor Singer served as formal or informal mentor to numerous public health professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior colleagues over the course of his long career, in addition to forging research collaborations with community-based partners and with researchers at all levels from undergraduates, to doctoral students, to seasoned colleagues. His impact on a wide range of scholarly fields, including medical/health anthropology, applied anthropology, and global health, among others, would be difficult to overstate. Our hearts are with Merrill’s family, and with all those who knew and admired him.
