The Teams

Study 3 Team
Memorialization, Contested Knowledge, and the Sociopsychological Impacts of Disinformation in the Context of COVID-19
(2022-2025)

Principal Investigators

Sarah E Wagner, Principal Investigator

Professor of Anthropology, The George Washington University

Sarah Wagner is a sociocultural anthropologist whose research focuses on post-conflict societies, memory, forensic science applied in the wake of war, and, most recently, on COVID-19 death and mourning. In the fall of 2021, she led a team of GWU students geolocating flags for the In America: Rememberinstallation.

roy richard grinker, co-pi

Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs,
The George Washington University

Roy Grinker conducts cross-cultural research on mental illness, developmental disorders, and stigma. He is currently studying grief, mourning, and memorialization in the COVID-19 pandemic. He is the author of Nobody’s Normal: How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness. 

Joel KuIpers, co-pi

Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs,
The George Washington University

Joel Kuipers has carried out extensive ethnographic analyses of the role of language in “troubles” in the eastern Indonesian island of Sumba, in US psychiatric clinics, U.S. science classrooms, COVID related Zoom funerals, and among teenage cell phone users. His current work focuses on how claims and assumptions about memorializations of COVID victims are contested, debated and inscribed. 

LEEN ALFATAFTA, PROJECT MANAGER

PhD Candidate, Sociocultural Anthropology,
The George Washington University  

Leen Alfatafta is pursuing a PhD in sociocultural anthropology, and is particularly interested in visual anthropology. Her research is based in Jordan and examines issues of precarity, gender relations and moral economies in migrant communities. Leen is also training in photography and filmmaking. She is currently the project manager for the Rituals in the Making research project. 

DR. KAMI FLETCHER
SENIOR RESEARCH CONSULTANT

Associate Professor of American & African American History, Albright College 

MARTHA GREENWALD
SPECIAL ADVISOR

Founding Director and Curator of The WhoWeLost Project

RESEARCH Consultants

DR. DEVIN PROCTOR

Assistant Professor, Anthropology,
Elon University

DR. RUTH E. TOULSEN

Faculty, Department of Humanistic Studies, Maryland Institute College of Art

TEAM MEMBERS

Read Team Bios

Cat Dang Ton
Sadaf Dastan
Sarah Frieman
Paige Gavin
Maura Kelly-Yuoh
James R. Morgan III
Sarah Peralta
Lauren Petree
Pyar Seth
Anannya Sharma
Sebastian Sirais
Anissa Sterner
Bawi L. Par
Anissa Ozbek
Daria Dzen
Sara Ragsdale

Study 2 Team
Death in an Age of Misinformation
(2021-2022)

Principal Investigators

ROY RICHARD GRINKER (PI)

Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs, The George Washington University

JOEL C. KUIPERS
(Co-PI)

Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs, The George Washington University

JORGE BENAVIDES-RAWSON (Co-PI)

PhD Candidate, Medical Anthropology, The George Washington University

TEAM ALUMNI

Dr. Sarah E. Wagner
Lauren Petree
Jesse DiPietro
Jessica Sinclair
Anissa Sterner
Anissa Ozebek
Maura Kelly-Yuoh
Sadaf Dastan

Study 1 Team
Funerary Practices, Pandemic Confinement,
and the Implications for COVID-19 Transmission

(2020-2021)

Principal Investigators

SARAH E. WAGNER (PI)

Professor of Anthropology, The George Washington University

ROY RICHARD GRINKER (Co-PI)

Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs, The George Washington University

JOEL C. KUIPERS
(Co-PI)

Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs, The George Washington University

DEVIN PROCTOR
(Co-PI)

Assistant Professor of Anthropology,
Elon University

JORGE BENAVIDES-RAWSON (Co-PI)

PhD Candidate, Medical Anthropology, The George Washington University

TARIQ ADLEY
(Project Manager)

Graduate Student,
The George Washington University

Special Consultants

REV. ANTHONY
EVANS

President,
The National Black
Church Initiative

REV. SHELDON WILLIAMS

President,
The National Black Religious Broadcasters 

Dr. Ruth E.
Toulsen

Socio-Cultural
Anthropologist
and Mortician

TEAM ALUMNI

Kai Blevins
Ariel Santikarma
Geoffrey Horvath
Soumitra Thorat
Briana Wojcik
Samuel-Mayes Mathews
Ruth Flynn