Martha Terry

I grew up in Iowa, a state that supports excellent public education. I had a rocky start to my education, but ended up with a BA and MA in anthropology from Northern Illinois University (bone class - my favorite!), and a PhD in anthropology from Pitt. I was hired in the early 1990s to be an urban ethnographer (position was a research staff) on a CDC-supported HIV prevention project aimed at increasing women's use of male condoms (ask me!). I conducted dissertation work on family planning decisions in a farming village in Mexico, in the State of Tlaxcala and learned that .. well, we are more the same than we are different. At some point I was made quasi-faculty, and in the early 2000s I assumed directorship of the Master of Public Health program in the Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences in the Graduate School of Public Health at Pitt. BUT before that, GSPIA had faith in my teaching ability and hired me to teach PIA 2730 .... Focus Groups .... because I had been trained as a focus group researcher and one of GSPIA's students - Kate - told Dr. Picard about me ... bless them both!  

I continue to be the MPH director, teach classes in social/behavioral sciences, community health, and women's/children's health and advise/mentor students in our and other programs. 

I live in the East End neighborhood of Friendship, best one in the city. I live in a 150-year old farmhouse that I share with one (right now--looking for another!) black dog and four cats - a house that feeds my soul and gives me what I need to teach, mentor and advise.