BFOB

Hello all, I'm also new to this thread, applying to medical anthropology programs this fall. I am quite anxious about the process but really delighted to e-meet all of you in this virtual community I'm interested in studying how the politics of global health effects the production of knowledge in medical research and international development programming. I've been living between the US and subsaharan Africa for the past 5 years doing independent ethnographic research and medical research under the supervision of NIH funded scientists. I've taken off 4 years between undergrad and my anticipated PhD start to make sure that I really want to pursue this course of study, and I am quite sure now that I do! I did well in undergrad, secured funding for an ethnographic senior research project, then a Fulbright award to conduct my own ethnographic research in Mauritius (which ended up as a short film instead of a formal paper.) I now live/work in Uganda managing qualitative research projects and analyzing qualitative data for a large medical research institution. My GRE scores will be average based on the practice tests I've taken, and while I did well as an undergrad, I didn't have a 4.0. My professional story is concentrated in research (I've published papers, given conference presentations etc.), but I'd love pointers about how to strengthen my applications. I'm finding it difficult to navigate how to appropriately contact POIs. Looking forward to going through this process with all of you--