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Research interests

Dr. Berry is a medical anthropologist whose research analyzes how and why health interventions often produce outcomes in people’s everyday lives that differ from, or even contradict, their intended aims.

For over two decades, she has investigated how structural forces and power dynamics shape health initiatives, often leading to unintended consequences and inequitable outcomes though her ethnographic work in Sololá, Guatemala. Her first book, Unsafe Motherhood, analyzes the dangerous disconnect between global maternal mortality policy and the lived realities of Mayan women. Her second book, Good Intentions in Global Health, examines the powerful role of emotion and "gut feelings" in propelling short-term medical missions despite a lack of evidence for their effectiveness. She also designed community-based participatory research projects with immigrant communities in North Carolina and with women in Guatemala to address issues shaped by structural inequity, such as family dissolution and gender equity.

Dr. Berry is now building a new research program in Canada focused on the long-term embodied experiences of people who have undergone hysterectomy. Despite its prevalence, critical qualitative researchers have paid scant attention to hysterectomy and we know little about how people who undergo this procedure view its impact on their lives, particularly years after surgery. Her current project investigates how this common intervention resonates through individuals' sense of self and body long after medical follow-up has ended.

She is also a collaborator on a transdisciplinary project that seeks to reframe understanding of the womb beyond a biomedical framework. Partnering with an Indigenous scholar and epidemiologist, this research uses arts-based and land-based methods to explore the womb's spiritual, cultural, and intergenerational significance, directly addressing its history as a site of colonial control.

A unifying theme throughout Dr. Berry’s work is a critical analysis of how well-intentioned interventions operate in practice and a commitment to research that centers the lived experiences of those most affected by health policies.

Teaching interests

Dr. Berry’s teaching is driven by a commitment to creating inclusive, accountable, and supportive learning environments for a diverse student body. She employs innovative, anti-oppressive pedagogies—such as permanent small learning groups and labour-based grading contracts—that shift the focus from competition to collaboration and from output to effort.

Her course design integrates a wide array of mediums and perspectives, centering Indigenous knowledge and ensuring communities speak for themselves. She is passionate about developing courses that address critical issues in health equity, from Perspectives on Indigenous Health in Canada to Global Perspectives on Health, and she specializes in mentoring students from a wide range of backgrounds through to successful completion of their degrees.

Publications and activities

Nicole Berry publications and activities