Faculty Bio

Harold Wright

Part-Time Instructor in the Department of Sociology & Anthropology

Education

• B.A., Grand Valley State University (Allendale, MI)
• M.S., Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia – INPA (Manaus, Brazil)
• Ph.D., The Ohio State University (Columbus, OH)

About

Harold "Butch" Wright is a Brazilian-American anthropologist whose work explores the intersections of health, culture, and socioenvironmental change in northern South America. His research examines how Indigenous and rural communities understand health and wellbeing, and how linguistic practices, social networks, and ecological conditions shape health outcomes across diverse sociopolitical contexts.

Butch brings more than two decades of on-the-ground experience in Amazonas, including five years as Director of International Relations at the Universidade do Estado do Amazonas (UEA) and thirteen years running an international education and consulting firm in Manaus. His collaborative work spans community organizations, government agencies, and NGOs in the health, education, environmental management, and social-assistance sectors.

His scholarship integrates ethnographic fieldwork with demographic methods, dietary assessments, and quantitative approaches such as Bayesian modeling, multilevel analysis, and social-network analysis. Current projects focus on rural and peri-urban health systems in Brazil, Ecuador, and the United States; comparative health disparities in Appalachian and Amazonian communities; and mercury exposure linked to fish consumption in riverine regions of the Amazon and Ohio River Valley.

Areas of Expertise

• Cultural Anthropology
• Population & Rural Health
• Food Systems & Environmental Health
• Mixed Methods & Community-Engaged Research
• Quantitative Methods (Bayesian, Multilevel, Network Analysis)
• Digital Health & Telemedicine

• CV (PDF)