Tatenda Magurenje Merken, RN
emory university
PhD Candidate – Medical Anthropology
AMSN Student – Family Nurse Practitioner
education
University of Arizona – BA, History (2009 – 2014)
University of Arizona – BS, Psychology (2009 – 2014)
University of Arizona – BS, Physical and Biological Anthropology (2009 – 2014)
Emory University – MSN, Family Practice Nursing (2020 – 2022)
Emory University – PhD, Medical Anthropology (2015 – 2023)
BACKGROUND
Tatenda Merken (née Magurenje) is a PhD candidate at Emory University in the Department of Anthropology while also enrolled in the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing and completing an Accelerated Masters of Science in Nursing in Family Practice. During her time at Emory University, she has explored the department from the eyes of both student as well as teacher, fulfilling the roles of Graduate Teaching Assistant and Course Instructor pertaining to cultural and medical anthropology. In both her research and her teaching, she promotes the diversity of higher education and has a passion for improving the lives of medically underserved communities. Regarding her past experiences, she has worked with Motherhood Beyond Bars – an organization focused on reuniting mothers with infants born in incarceration – and the Arizona Department of Child Services. Today, she is a Registered Nurse at Emory University Hospital.
research interests
Her research interests lay within the overlapping realms of health and law as she has examined the well-being of mothers and youth that are victim to the U.S. criminal justice system and how this experience affects their lives during and after incarceration. Additionally, she also studies the formation and effects of the “abuse to prison pipeline” from the female perspective. Currently, she is writing her dissertation on the history, culture, and identity of Black officers in the Atlanta Police Department in relation to the Black Lives Matter movement and criminal justice reform.
- Maternal and Child Health
- Violence
- Policing
- Incarcerated Populations
- Medical anthropology
- Nursing
- Mental health
- Social and Criminal Justice
Publications
Mangurenje, T. (2020). The Politics of Respectability: Race, Policing, and Occupational Identity in Atlanta. Exertions. https://doi.org/10.21428/1d6be30e.211b8dc3
Mangurenje, T. and MJ. Konner. (2018). Mothers in prison: The effects of incarceration on children’s behavioral health outcomes. International Public Health Journal (Special Issue: Resilience in breaking the cycle of children’s environmental health disparities). 10(3): 275-286.
Hadley C., Mangurenje T., Tribble AG. (2017). Book Review on Give a Man a Fish: Reflections on the New Politics of Distribution, James Ferguson. American Journal of Human Biology. 29(4): e23020. doi: 10.1002/ajhb.23020.
teaching
Course Instructor
- Medical Anthropology, Emory (2019)
Graduate Teaching Assistant (2016-2019)
- Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Emory
- Concepts and Methods in Cultural Anthropology, Emory
- Medical Anthropology, Emory
- Health Behind Locked Doors, Emory