Shedra Amy Snipes
Title: Fellow, National Cancer Institute Cancer Education and Career Development Program, University of Texas School of Public Health (present – fall 2010) Assistant professor of Biobehavioral Health, The Penn State University (starting fall 2010)
Education: Ph.D. and M.A., biocultural anthropology, the University of Washington; B.S., anthropology and human biology, Emory University Age: 32
Career mentor: Lovell Jones, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Sharon Cooper and Maria Fernandez, University of Texas School of Public Health
Best advice you were given regarding your career path? “Choose an academic home, colleagues, collaborators and mentors who will promote your scholarship to its highest level, all while giving equal consideration to your personal happiness and familial commitments. One should not be compromised for the other.”
Not much has changed about Dr. Shedra Amy Snipes since she was a little girl in Savannah, Ga., who grew up loving science, cherishing the “well-stocked” chemistry set her mother made sure was at her disposal, realizing that she was part tomboy and part “nerd,” and always asking “why?”
And that’s a good thing. At 32, Snipes, a biocultural anthropologist, says she has found the perfect home for her inquisitiveness and all that she loves about science, people, culture and health. Snipes credits the undergraduate course in medical anthropology she took by chance while at Emory University for shaping what became her life’s work.
