Thomas McDade(1999)
Education:
- PhD in Anthropology at Emory University (1999)
- BA in Biosocial Anthropology at Pomona College (1991)
Position:
- Professor of Anthropology at Northwestern University
- Director of Laboratory of Human Research at Northwestern University
- Fellow at Institute for Policy Research (IPR) at Northwestern University, Director of IPR’s Cells to Society: The Center on Social Disparities and Health
Publications (Dissertation):
- PhD Thesis: Culture Change, Stress, and Immune Function in Western Samoan Youth Worthman advised by Dr. Worthman
Biography:
Thomas McDade is a biological anthropologist who focuses on human biology and population health. Broadly, he is also interested in how social, economic, and cultural contexts impact outcomes of human biology and health over people’s lifetimes. His PhD dissertation at Emory focused on this topic by investigating the impact of of culture change on children and adolescents in Western Samoa in relation to psychosocial stress and immune functions using minimally invasive methods.
Following his PhD, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and joined the faculty of Northwestern University in 2000. His research has been recognized for advancements in understanding developmental and ecological factors that shape the human immune system and life course research that integrates perspectives from the biological and social sciences.
In addition to his role as an anthropology professor, McDade is also the director the Laboratory of Human Biology Research at Northwestern University, which has as its central mission the development and application of minimally invasive methods for studying human biology and health in diverse community-based settings around the world. Many of these protocols require only a drop of blood from a simple finger stick, lowering the costs and burdens of blood collection to facilitate research into the social and ecological determinants of health and impacts on multiple aspects of human immune and endocrine function.
His current research encompasses a wide breath of these research topics, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. With colleagues at the Feinberg School of Medicine, McDade is leading an effort to investigate the behavioral and contextual factors that promote, and prevent, the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the community. This team has also established a “no contact” protocol, Screening for Coronavirus Antibodies in Neighborhoods (SCAN), to quantify antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 using a self-collected finger blood kit. Data from the study will be used to inform policies to limit viral transmission on the community, and to illuminate the factors that are contributing to stark social inequalities in rates of COVID-19 infection and mortality. Some of his other current research includes understanding social epigenetics in early environments, biomarkers for population-health based research, and pathways linking social inequalities, inflammation, and health within and across generations.
McDade’s work has appeared in a wide range of journals, including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the Royal Society, New England Journal of Medicine, Social Science and Medicine, American Journal of Public Health, Demography, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, American Journal of Human Biology, Medical Anthropology, and Psychosomatic Medicine. In 2002, he received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the nation’s highest honor for scientists early in their career. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and member of the National Academy of Sciences and American Academy of Arts and Sciences.