Delaney J. Glass

Ph.C. at The University of Washington, Incoming Assistant Professor at The University of Toronto in Summer 2024

Biography

I am a mixed-methods, biocultural anthropologist and human biologist working primarily with Arab communities in North America and Jordan. I examine biocultural drivers and population health consequences of early life adversity and social inequalities on child and adolescent linear growth/body size, pubertal development, mental health, and wellbeing. I use frameworks and methods from medical anthropology, evolutionary biology, and qualitative health research. I am an incoming Assistant Professor of Biocultural Medical Anthropology at The University of Toronto beginning in the Summer of 2024. My lab BLISS is forthcoming at UofT. See below for more information about BLISS.

Biocultural Lab for the study of Inequality and Social Stress (BLISS)

BLISS is a research group dedicated to advancing understanding of human stress, resilience, and survivance across contexts and stages in the lifecourse. We work with minimally invasive biomarkers, anthropometrics, health data, and qualitative/mixed-ethnographic methods to understand how social inequality and diverse forms of social stress influence health, well being, and other outcomes of interest. Interested students (undergraduate and graduate) and post-doctoral scholars should contact me for more information about joining BLISS.

Education

MPH in Epidemiology (Maternal and Child Health), 2023

University of Washington
M.A. in Biological Anthropology, 2020

University of Washington
BS in Anthropology, 2016

Boise State University

Research

I use thoughtful, transparent, and community-attentive scientific practices to investigate how social inequalities and early life adversities—namely those derived from armed conflict, forced migration/displacement, and socioeconomic marginalization—impact human puberty, physical growth, and broad ranging mental and physical health outcomes. My research methodology and pedagogy are informed by evolutionary approaches, feminist and anti-colonial theory and practice and include open science approaches.

I work primarily with Arab communities in North America and with adolescent populations in Jordan. I specialize in quantitative statistical, biobehavioral lab (anthropometric/enzyme immunoassay), and ethnographic methods. My current and future research adopts an expansive set of methods and epistemological approaches to understand human stress and resilience with a particular emphasis on partnered and community-based research.

As-Salt and Amman Jordan

Me in the CSDE Biodemography Lab, Credit: Delaney Glass

Taking blood pressure/blood sugar at a community health event with the Iraqi Arab Health Board of Washington, Credit: Iraqi Arab Health Board

Leading a youth program activity with East African Community Services,

leading a youth activity entitled what does it mean to be a girl, Credit: East African Community Services

Publications

Peer Reviewed Publications

Glass, DJ., Al-Tameemi,Z., Farquhar,S. Advancing an Individual-Community Health Nexus: Survey, Visual, and Narrative Meanings of Mental and Physical Health for Arab and Arab American Emerging Adults. Social Science and Medicine Mental Health, 4,100281.

Glass, D. J., Young, Y. M., Tran, T. K., Clarkin, P., & Korinek, K. (2023). Weathering within war: Somatic health complaints among Vietnamese older adults exposed to bombing and violence as adolescents in the American war. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 111080.

Glass, D. J. Disentangling determinism (s) for a biosocial anthropology of scale. Review of: Biosocial Worlds: Anthropology of Health Environments Beyond Determinism. American Journal of Biological Anthropology (2022).American Journal of Biological Anthropology.

Glass, D. J., Geerkens, J. T., & Martin, M. A. (2022). Psychosocial and energetic factors on human female pubertal timing: a systematized review. Evolutionary Human Sciences, 1-53.

Abouhala, S., Hamidaddin, A., Taye, M., Glass, D. J., Zanial, N., Hammood, F., Allouch,F., & Abuelezam, N. N. (2021). A National Survey Assessing COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Among Arab Americans. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, 1-9.

Scaggs, Shane A., Fulk, Karen S., Glass, Delaney., and Ziker, John P. (2017). “Framing Charitable Solicitations in a Behavioral Experiment: Cues Derived from Evolutionary Theory of Cooperation and Economic Anthropology.” In Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Fairness, Equity, and Justice, pp. 153-178. Springer, Cham.

Publications in Preparation

Glass, DJ., Godwin, J., Bez, E., Brindle, E., Daniel, S., Lipson, S., Ellison, P., Corley, M., Valeggia, C., Martin, MA. A longitudinal investigation of cortisol across puberty in Indigenous Qom girls.

Glass,DJ., Kinge, M., Njuguna, I., McGrath, C., Lawley, K., Moraa, H., Onyango, A., Wamalwa, D., Shattuck, E., Enquobahrie, D., John-Stewart, G. Biosocial Influences on Longitudinal Infant Growth Among HIV-Exposed Uninfected and HIV-Unexposed Uninfected Infants in Western Kenya.

Zanial, N., Glass, DJ., Taye, M. Abuelezam, N. Vaccine Willingness and Impacts to Wellbeing During the COVID-19 Pandemic among Arab Americans: a qualitative thematic analysis.

Martin, MA. and Glass, DJ. Systematized Review of Reverse Causality in Infant Feeding and Growth.

Keith MH, Corley M, Daniel S, Glass DJ, Lipton S, Ellison P, Valeggia C, Martin MA. Statistical methods to evaluate sampling designs: assessing within-person trends and between-person variation with pubertal hormone data.

Research Pre-Registrations and Methods Tools

Glass, DJ., Godwin, J., Martin, M. (2023). Analysis Pre-Registration: Longitudinal analysis of cortisol changes during pubertal development in Indigenous Qom girls. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/Y24MF

Glass, DJ., Martin MA., Pan, T. (2023). R Code for Automated BioTek Gen5 data processing. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/5GTN7

Glass, DJ., John-Stewart, G., Shattuck, E., Njuguna, I., & Enquobahrie, D. (2023). Cofactors of Longitudinal Linear Growth Among Infants With And Without In-Utero HIV/Antiretroviral Exposure In Kenya. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/DBMG9

Other Publications

Glass, D. (2021). Alexandra Brewis and Amber Wutich’s Lazy, Crazy, and Disgusting: Stigma and the Undoing of Global Health. (2021). http://somatosphere.net/2021/lazy-crazy-and-disgusting.html/

Barbero, María V., Everson, Courtney M., Glass, Delaney J (2021). “Editorial: In Pursuit of Justice in Child and Youth Studies”. Neos. Volume 31 (1).

Skills

Research Methods

Semi-structured interviewing, survey design, EIA/ELISA’s, PhotoVoice, secondary data analysis

Data Science

rstats, visualization, data management, data cleaning, data wrangling, rmarkdown, Jupyter notebooks, reproducible workflows

Data Analysis

Qualitative coding, thematic analysis, bayesian and inferential multilevel longitudinal methods/hierarchical modeling, survival analysis, etiologic inference, epidemiological methods

Public Engagement in Science

podcast production, social media outreach, creative briefs, community-based project briefs, blogging, non-technical communication of research

Teaching & Mentorship

Open-Teaching Materials

If you would like to access syllabi or other teaching materials I have developed, please visit my FigShare site

Mentorship

I am an experienced mentor for undergraduate and post-graduate students in primary qualitative fieldwork, biomarker lab settings, obtaining scholarships, and in the development of scholarly writing. I will be interested in advising graduate students and providing mentorship to dedicated students in my lab, BLISS. Please contact me if you have inquiries about mentorship.