Prof. Ruth Kutalek (PhD)

Prof. Ruth Kutalek is a Medical Anthropologist and Associate Professor at the Department of Social- and Preventive Medicine, Center of Public Health, Medical University of Vienna.  Her research currently focuses on anthropological perspectives of infectious diseases, especially community perspectives on Ebola, Lassa fever, and measles, including the involvement of health workers in epidemics. She has also done work on vaccine hesitancy, migration of health workers and access to health care for migrants; as well as environment, health and vulnerabilities; medical ethics and ethnopharmacology. 
She has conducted research in several countries in West and East Africa and supported the WHO in missions in Liberia and Sierra Leone (Ebola) and in Nigeria (Lassa fever). Prof. Kutalek is also engaged in the development of curricula in various settings, specifically in introducing aspects of diversity, culture & health in the curriculum for undergraduate medical studies. She has published widely and is reviewer for several journals in the social sciences, public health and tropical medicine. Prof. Kutalek is principal investigator of the EU funded SoNAR-Global (meduniwien.ac.at/sonar), a project which mobilizes social sciences against infectious threats. 

​Prof. Kutalek is an active member of the Vienna Vaccine Safety Initiative since 2013, contributing social science perspectives to challenges such as measles vaccine hesitancy and antimicrobial resistance.