Neely Laurenzo Myers

Neely Laurenzo Myers is a medical and psychological anthropologist whose scholarship to date has focused on the experience, understanding, and treatment for mental health and substance use concerns in the United States and Tanzania. She is the author of two books, Breaking Points: Youth Mental Health Crises and How We Can All Help (University of California Press, 2024) and Recovery’s Edge: An Ethnography of Mental Health Care and Moral Agency (Vanderbilt University Press, 2015). She has published more than 30 articles and book chapters, including in peer-reviewed journals such as Medical Anthropological Quarterly, Social Science and Medicine-Mental Health, Ethos, and Psychiatric Services. She has had nearly 15 years of continuous funding for her research from the National Institutes of Health, and has also received funds from the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health Research and the Sam Taylor Foundation. Her next project aims to explore art, artificial intelligence, and youth mental health around the globe, including new sites in Europe, East Asia, and Central and South America.

At SMU, Myers is the Director of the Mental Health Equity Lab (where she mentors students from the undergraduate to postdoctoral level), as well as the Health and Society Program. She is also the Editor-in-Chief of Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry.

Research Interests

Mental Health • Health Equity • Care • Youth • Art • Artificial Intelligence

Courses Taught

Introduction to Medical Anthropology • Self, Culture, and Mind • Health in Cross-Cultural Perspective • Biomedicine, Culture, and Power • Research Methods in Ethnology • Advanced Seminar in Ethnology: The Good Life? Crisis, Care, and Recovery from an Anthropological Perspective? • Advanced Seminar in Ethnology: Global Mental Health • Anthropology of Care • Research Strategies