Health and well-being cannot be understood through biology alone because they’re shaped by history and community. A&S produces internationally recognized research integrating biomedical innovation with cultural understanding. Recognizing that healing requires both scientific intervention and human-centered care, we’re pioneering treatments for Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, sensory disorders and mental health disorders while examining how different communities understand wellness.

• Enhanced Clinical Infrastructure: Modernize facilities for speech and hearing, clinical psychology, school psychology and marriage and family therapy—creating spaces where care is informed by awareness of how different communities understand health and healing.
• Interdisciplinary Health Concentrations: Programs where pre-med students take medical anthropology, speech pathology students study linguistics and narrative theory, and future therapists learn about differences in expressing distress.
• Community Health Engagement: Health fairs that build trust while providing screening and care. Community partnerships positioning University expertise as a resource rather than an authority. Health interventions for at-risk populations through the Center for Behavioral Health.
• Research Innovation: Teams studying neurodegenerative diseases alongside cultural psychology, AI therapy tools designed with attention to ethics and bias, health communication strategies honoring diverse understandings of body and mind.

Impact: Health care leaders who understand that effective treatment calls for technical skill and cultural humility, who can read an MRI and recognize how patients make meaning of illness. By 2030, interprofessional clinical services providing care that is medically excellent and deeply humane.