Victor Braitberg
Victor Braitberg is a cultural and applied anthropologist whose teaching, applied work, and scholarship share a concern with human wellbeing and with how knowledge, professional practice, institutions, and cultural values can alleviate—or contribute to—human suffering.
A dual citizen of France and the United States, he grew up in St. Louis and has family roots in the Dordogne region of France. He received his B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies, with concentrations in psychology and philosophy, from The Evergreen State College and his Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Professor Braitberg directs and teaches in the Health and Human Values minor, working with students preparing for careers in medicine and other health professions. His courses examine the social, cultural, historical, and human dimensions of health, illness, disability, and care.
His applied work has taken place at the intersection of research and professional practice. At the UNC School of Medicine, he conducted research supporting the development of telemedicine services responsive to children with disabilities and their families. In Tucson, he has consulted with El Rio Community Health Center on organizational and management practices and has collaborated for many years with the Tucson Police Department on the implementation of evidence-based policing practices.
His scholarly interests include the social and cultural dimensions of science, technology, and medicine; critical approaches to telehealth, telemedicine, and digital health; migration and human rights; the historical, social, and cultural dimensions of surveillance and privacy; policing and society; critical studies of the health-care and criminal-legal industrial complexes; and the history of medicine in the United States and France.
Over the years, he has supported Honors students through independent studies, Quest projects, and senior theses related to these areas. He is particularly interested in advising interdisciplinary projects and students who want to use ethnographic research, oral history, archival research, or combinations of these methods.
His scholarship on the history of telemedicine and the Tohono O’odham Nation received the History of Science Society’s 2022 Price/Webster Prize, and his teaching has been recognized through finalist and semifinalist selections for the University of Arizona’s Five-Star Teaching Award.