Louis Marcelin

Louis Marcelin is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Miami, where he also holds an appointment in the Department of Public Health Sciences. A sociocultural anthropologist, his research centers on the anthropology of family and kinship in the Americas. He further investigates health and human security issues, along with the dynamics of power, violence, and marginalization in societies across Brazil, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and the United States. Marcelin earned his PhD in Social Anthropology from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in 1996 and has been at the University of Miami since 1999. He directs the Louis Herns Marcelin Lab and engages University of Miami students and faculty, along with peers from other institutions and local communities, in participatory action research projects. He has involved students in research on urban youth gang violence and globalization in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and the United States.

Marcelin serves as Principal Investigator on a major grant from the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Drug Abuse to implement Culturally Modified Family Based Therapy for Haitian youth and families in Miami. This interdisciplinary project, involving collaborators from the University of Miami and the University of South Florida, aims to identify and decrease risk factors while strengthening protective factors for healthy development among Haitian youth aged 13 to 17. He received a Spencer Fellowship for his research on the socio-cultural costs of pursuing higher education for women in Haiti. Key publications include "Differences and Barriers of Haitian and Haitian Immigrant Children with Sickle Cell Disease" (2025), "Higher Education, Human Development and Growing Inequality in Pre- and Post-Pandemic Haiti" (2024), "The Making of Migration Trails in the Americas: Ethnographic Network Tracing of Haitians on the Move" (2023), "Implementation of hospital-based sickle cell newborn screening and follow-up programs in Haiti" (2023), and "The COVID-19 Pandemic and Haiti's Changing Remittance Landscape" (2022). His work has accumulated over 1,450 citations. Marcelin teaches courses such as advanced medical anthropology, issues in health disparities, and theories of kinship and family.

Professional Email: lmarcel2@miami.edu