Jerome Crowder is a medical and visual anthropologist who has worked in Bolivia (since 1989) and Perú (since 2003) and most recently in East Houston (since 2006) and Galveston (since 2010). He received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Pittsburgh in 1998 and then held a National Cancer Institute Post-Doc at the U-Texas Health Science Center-Houston, School of Public Health (2000). Crowder held Lecturer and Assistant Research Professor positions in the Department of Anthropology at University of Houston and then became Assistant Dean for Technology and Communication in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences where he served until moving to the Institute for the Medical Humanities at UTMB in the fall of 2010. Crowder returned to University of Houston as an Associate Professor in the College of Medicine in 2020.

Crowder has been both Principal Investigator and Project Director roles on several federally funded research projects in the Houston/Galveston region of Texas (NSF, NEH, AHRQ/PCOR); each of these projects focused on underserved communities (Latinx, African American) and their attitudes towards health/health care and developing means to improve residents’ access to care. His 2013-18 PCORI project initiated community dialogues with residents over 65 years in Galveston’s underserved communities, addressing topics like Patient Centered Care and Mental Health & Aging (including dementia and Alzheimer’s). Within the past year he returned to Houston to integrate anthropological perspectives into medical education curriculum and develop projects with communities in East Houston.