Nina Etkin


Nina Lilian Etkin was an anthropologist and biologist. Dr. Etkin was noted for her work in medical anthropology, ethnobiology, and ethnopharmacology. She studied the relation between food and health for over thirty years. Her work involved complementary and alternative medicines for prevention and treatment in Hawai‘i; the use of ethnomedicines in Indonesia; and health issues in Nigeria. She won numerous grants and awards from national and international agencies and published several books as well as over 80 professional articles in peer reviewed journals.

Education and academic career

Etkin earned her undergraduate degree in zoology from Indiana University in 1970 and her MA and PhD in Anthropology in 1972 and 1975 from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

Academic positions

She was also a member of the medical faculty of the University of Hawai‘i.

Awards and honors

Etkin served as Editor in Chief of Economic Botany, the journal of the Society for Economic Botany.
She was a Fellow of the Linnean Society and a past president and honorary board member of the International Society for Ethnopharmacology.
Etkin won the 2009 Distinguished Economic Botanist Award from the Society for Economic Botany.

Publications

Books