Annie Harper

Annie Harper is a cultural anthropologist and Assistant Professor in Yale University’s Department of Psychiatry. She is PI of multiple NIH and other funded studies, conducting mixed methods community based participatory research to study the intersections of poverty, finances, and mental health, including how people with serious mental illness cope with poverty and financial difficulties. She also studies the structural determinants of mental health, focusing on the financial services and retail and industries, and debt of all kinds. Her work is action and policy oriented, seeking to understand how the financial services and retail industries could better serve low-income people generally, particularly people with mental illness, and how to create conditions where debt is manageable and avoidable. She serves on the board of a local Credit Union, where she is chair of the community impact committee.