Rate My Professor Shari Jacobson

Shari Jacobson is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Department Head of Sociology and Anthropology at Susquehanna University. She earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in Anthropology from Stanford University, an Ed.M. from Harvard University, and a B.A. from Grinnell College. Her research in anthropology focuses on human diversity, culturally particular ways of life, and the processes by which beliefs and practices become common sense. Jacobson has conducted ethnographic research among ultra-orthodox Jews in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and among fundamentalist and evangelical Christians in the United States. She views anthropology as a discipline that enables understanding of human diversity and cultural arrangements, with potential for critique and transformation of cultural practices.

Prior to her academic appointment, Jacobson gained extensive international experience. She served as a Peace Corps volunteer, teaching mathematics for two years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, followed by six months of travel around West Africa. She worked at the United Nations in New York and taught English at a university in rural northwestern China. In addition, she taught English as a foreign language in Los Angeles. Originally pursuing a graduate program in international development with a focus on education, she shifted to anthropology to investigate religious communities and cultural dynamics. At Susquehanna University, within the School of Natural and Social Sciences, she contributes to programs that cultivate analytical thinkers attuned to global issues and cultural diversity.