Nellychris Omeonu

---

Program Entrance

2024

Advisor

Sarah Willen and Sarah Williams

Research Interests

Nellychris Omeonu is a medical anthropology PhD student whose research examines how sickle cell disease care is institutionally organized, negotiated, and experienced. Her current ethnographic research focuses on clinical care, recognition, trust, emotional and
moral labor, and the everyday experiences of patients and health-care professionals at a sickle cell institute in the northeastern United States.

Medical anthropology|Anthropology of care| Chronic illness|Sickle cell disease|Health inequities|Clinical encounters|Political economy of health| and the moral and emotional dimensions of care.

About

What sparked your interest in Anthropology?

I honestly stumbled into the discipline during my undergrad days at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria where I took a special interest in medical anthropology: I remember thinking about how fascinating it was to share in the different worldviews and experiences of people on health discourses.

Where are you/will you be conducting your research/fieldwork?

Currently conducting research at the New England Sickle Cell Institute at UConn Health in Farmington, Connecticut. Through ethnographic fieldwork, I am examining how sickle cell disease care is organized, negotiated, and experienced within a clinical setting. My research focuses on the everyday interactions among patients, family members, clinicians, and staff, with particular attention to trust, recognition, institutional practices, and the moral and emotional dimensions of care.

What do you find most interesting about your field work/research location?

Sickle cell disease may have a shared biomedical definition, but people experience and understand it very differently depending on their histories, identities, relationships, and previous encounters with the health-care system. Observing these everyday interactions at the sickle cell institute allows me to examine how institutional policies and clinical routines meet the lived realities of chronic illness.

What is your most memorable experience in the field so far, or most memorable lesson learned?

One of the most memorable lessons I have learned in the field is that people can live with the same disease and experience it in profoundly different ways. Sickle cell disease is expressed differently in each person’s body, in the location and intensity of pain, in the symptoms they describe, and in how they communicate their need for care.

What do you do in your downtime?

I go to the gym; you have to work your bones and your joints. No one regrets a good workout.