Public Health, Epidemiology & Nutrition

Biography

Dr. Feldman is a Professor of Anthropology at The College at Brockport, State University of New York near Rochester, New York, and former President of the Society for Medical Anthropology-an international organization with over 1,300 members. He is the former Chair of his current Department, and has served as Professor, Academic Director, and Institute Director at Nova Southeastern University near Fort Lauderdale, Florida, President of D.A. Feldman & Associates, Inc.-an HIV/AIDS social research organization, Research Associate Professor at the University of Miami School of Medicine and faculty member of the MPH. Program and founding Executive Director of the AIDS Center of Queens County-the AIDS service organization for the borough of Queens in New York City. As a leader in AIDS and anthropology, and more broadly medical anthropology, he was the first anthropologist to develop as Principal Investigator a research study on HIV/AIDS in the United States in 1982-among gay men in New York City. He also was the first anthropologist to do a research study on AIDS in Africa in 1985-among hospitalized persons with AIDS in Rwanda. He started the AIDS and Anthropology Research Group in 1986, which had rapidly grown under his leadership. In 1987, he led the formation of an AIDS service organization in the face of strong, and sometimes violent, community opposition. In 1988, he influenced AIDS policy in Bangladesh after meeting with government officials and the media. That same year, he founded the American Anthropological Association Task Force on AIDS. He has also conducted AIDS social/behavioral research in Zambia, Senegal, Uganda, Hungary, and Florida. His published books include The Social Dimensions of AIDS: Method and Theory (1986), Culture and AIDS (1990), Global AIDS Policy (1994), The AIDS Crisis A Documentary History (1998), AIDS, Culture, and Africa (2008), Ethnicity and Health Care Delivery: Sexually Transmitted Diseases (2009), and AIDS, Culture, and Gay Men (2010), as well as 79 other papers, posters, and articles. He has served as an expert witness on HIV/AIDS for eight law firms. Dr. Feldman has served as elected Treasurer and member of the Membership Committee of the National Association for the Practice of Anthropology, member of committees for the Institute of Medicine, elected member of the Nominations Committee of the American Anthropological Association, and elected board member of the Society for Medical Anthropology. He served as the Chair of the Friends of the Society for Applied Anthropology Committee. He is the recipient of the Solon T. Kimball Award for Public and Applied Anthropology (1996), and the Distinguished Service Award from the Society for Medical Anthropology (2008). He served as the Chair of the SMA Career Achievement Award Committee (2014).

Research Interest

AIDS social research, Anthropology, Public Health & Epidemiology