Sarah Willen

Professor

Anthropology

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Education

PhD, MPH, 2006, Emory University

About

Sarah S. Willen, PhD, MPH is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Connecticut and Co-Director of the Research Program on Global Health and Human Rights at the university’s Human Rights Institute. A former NIMH Postdoctoral Fellow in Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, she holds a PhD in Anthropology and an MPH in Global Health, both from Emory University.

Willen’s first book Fighting for Dignity: Migrant Lives at Israel’s Margins (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), has won multiple awards, and she is a two-time recipient of the Rudolf Virchow Prize from the Critical Anthropology of Global Health Caucus of the Society for Medical Anthropology. She has edited or co-edited three books and eight special journal collections and authored over 45 articles and book chapters on issues of migration and health, health and human rights, deservingness, flourishing, medical education, and other topics, including pieces in the Lancet, Social Science & Medicine, Social Science & Medicine-Mental Health, Ethos, and Jewish Social Studies.

Willen is Co-Founder of the Pandemic Journaling Project, a combined journaling platform and research study about the lived impact of COVID-19, Principal Investigator of the RWJF-funded ARCHES | the AmeRicans’ Conceptions of Health Equity Study, an interdisciplinary, mixed-methods study of how people in the United States think about health, fairness, and social interconnectedness (“health-related deservingness”), and Co-Principal Investigator of an NSF-funded study of Covid-19’s impact on first-generation college students and their families.

Willen’s work has received support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Fulbright-Hays, the Social Science Research Council, the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), among other sources. She has served as Member-at-Large of the Executive Board of the Society for Medical Anthropology and is current or past editorial board member for Social Science & Medicine; Social Science & Medicine-Mental Health; Culture, Medicine, & Psychiatry; and Medical Anthropology Quarterly.

Teaching

Undergraduate

Medical anthropology, immigration and health, the Middle East, anthropology of Jews and Jewishness

Graduate

Embodiment and experience, anthropology and the clinical encounter, health and human rights, dignity and health, flourishing and well-being in interdisciplinary perspective, anthropology and the writer’s craft

Affiliations

• Co-founder, The Pandemic Journaling Project (2020–)
• Principal Investigator, ARCHES | AmeRicans’ Conceptions of Health Equity Study (2017–)
• Co-founder and co-editor, AccessDenied: A Conversation on Unauthorized Immigration and Health (2009-15)

Publications

Books

2019 Fighting for Dignity: Migrant Lives at Israel’s Margins. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

• Stirling Prize for Best Published Book in Psychological Anthropology, Society for Psychological Anthropology (2020)
• Edie Turner First-Book Prize in Ethnographic Writing, Society for Humanistic Anthropology (2020)
• Yonathan Shapiro Prize for Best Book in Israel Studies, Association for Israel Studies (2019)
• Finalist for the Jordan Schnitzer Book Award in Social Sciences, Anthropology, and Folklore, Association for Jewish Studies (2020)
• Shortlisted for the Victor Turner Prize, Society for Humanistic Anthropology (2020)

2011 Shattering Culture: American Medicine Responds to Cultural Diversity. Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good, Sarah S. Willen, Seth Hannah, Ken Vickery, and Lawrence T. Park (eds). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

2010 A Reader in Medical Anthropology: Theoretical Trajectories, Emergent Realities. Byron Good, Michael M.J. Fischer, Sarah S. Willen, Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good (eds.). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

2007 Transnational Migration to Israel in Global Comparative Context. Sarah S. Willen (ed.). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Journal issues (guest edited)

2024  Student Experiences of Covid-19 around the Globe: Insights from the Pandemic Journaling Project. Special issue of Culture, Medicine, & Psychiatry. Heather M. Wurtz, Katherine A. Mason, & Sarah S. Willen, guest editors. 48(1).

2022  Flourishing and Health in Critical Perspective: An Invitation to Interdisciplinary Dialogue. Special series in Social Science and Medicine—Mental Health. 2.

2022  Journaling and Mental Health during COVID-19: Insights from the Pandemic Journaling Project. Special series in Social Science and Medicine—Mental Health. 2. Katherine A. Mason, Sarah S. Willen, & Heather M. Wurtz, guest editors.

2019  Invoking Health and Human Rights in the United States. Special section of Health and Human Rights Journal. 21(1).

2013  Cultural Competence in Action: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Four Case Studies in Medical Education. Special issue of Culture, Medicine, & Psychiatry. Elizabeth Carpenter-Song and Sarah S. Willen, guest editors. 37(2).

2012  Migration, ‘Illegality,’ and Health: Mapping Vulnerability and Debating ‘Deservingness.’ Special issue of Social Science & Medicine. 74(6).

2012  Horizons of Experience: Reinvigorating Dialogue between Phenomenological and Psychoanalytic Anthropologies. Special Issue of Ethos. Sarah S. Willen and Don Seeman, guest editors. 40(1).

2007  Exploring ‘Illegal’ and ‘Irregular’ Migrants’ Lived Experiences of Law and State Power. Special Issue of International Migration. 45(3).

Articles (select)

2025   Willen, Sarah S., Abigail Fisher Williamson, Colleen C. Walsh. “Who Gets to Define Flourishing? Disentangling Social Science from Theology in Flourishing Measurement and Policy Prescriptions.” Social Science and Medicine—Mental Health. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmmh.2024.100377.

2024    Parsons, Michelle, Katherine A. Mason, Heather M. Wurtz, & Sarah S. Willen. “’I Want the World Back’: Pandemic Loneliness, Bodily Interaction, and Place.” Ethos. https://doi.org/10.1111/etho.12423.

2023    Willen, Sarah S., Kristina Baines, and Michael Ennis-McMillan. Cultivating Voice and Solidarity in Times of Crisis: Ethnographic Online Journaling as a Pedagogical Tool. Culture, Medicine, & Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-023-09832-6.

2022    Flourishing and Health in Critical Perspective: An Invitation to Interdisciplinary Dialogue. Social Science and Medicine—Mental Health. 2: 100045.

2022    Willen, Sarah S., Abigail Fisher Williamson, Colleen C. Walsh, Mikayla Hyman, William Tootle. Rethinking Flourishing: Critical Insights and Qualitative Perspectives from the U.S. Midwest. Social Science and Medicine—Mental Health. 2: 100057.

2017    Willen, Sarah S., Michael Knipper, César E. Abadí­a-Barrero, & Nadav Davidovitch. “Syndemic Vulnerability and the Right to Health.” The Lancet. 389: 964-77.

2012    Willen, Sarah S. “How Is Health-Related ‘Deservingness’ Reckoned? Perspectives from Unauthorized Im/migrants in Tel Aviv.” Social Science & Medicine. 74(6): 812-821.

2007   Willen, Sarah S. “Toward a Critical Phenomenology of ‘Illegality’: State Power, Criminalization, and Abjectivity among Undocumented Migrant Workers in Tel Aviv, Israel.” International Migration 45(3): 8-38.

 

Awards

• Community-Engaged Health Research Excellence Award, UConn Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention and Policy (InCHIP) (2022)
• Future of Truth Fellow, UConn Humanities Institute (2021-22)
• Faculty Fellow, UConn Humanities Institute (2013-14)
• Rudolf Virchow Award Critical Anthropology of Global Health Special Interest Group, Society for Medical Anthropology (2004, 2012)
• Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning & Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Education, Harvard University (2008, 2009)
• Fellow, Center for Health, Culture & Society, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University (2005-06)
• David R. Blumenthal Award in Jewish Studies & the Humanities, Emory University (2004)
• Marjorie Shostak Prize for Excellence & Humanity in Ethnographic Writing, Emory University (2003)