University of Colorado Denver College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

​My career has not developed along a conventional path, but throughout my clinical work, teaching, and research run interests in migration, youth and the transition to adulthood in contemporary societies, the delivery of health care, and people’s interactions with major institutions such as schools, clinics and hospitals, and the military.

I started my working life as a registered nurse working in a variety of settings from hospital surgical units to community clinics to the Visiting Nurse Service. It was while working as a Visiting Nurse that I realized that I needed further study to understand the factors that affected how people made decisions about their health and health care when they were outside the direct control and influence of health care professionals. This led me to study cross-cultural and international nursing at the University of California San Francisco where I discovered medical anthropology.

I have always wanted to apply the methods and theories of anthropology to study issues, institutions, and social phenomena in the U.S. and most of my work has been based in this country. My dissertation research examined the conflict over spending for public education in a suburb of New York City where approximately 35% of the population comprised newly arrived immigrants from Latin America. After moving to Colorado I shifted focus to study the living situations and survival strategies of homeless and runaway youth in Denver. Since 2008, with my colleague Dr. Sarah Hautzinger, of Colorado College, we have been conducting an ethnographic study of the effects of multiple deployments on soldiers, their families, and the community of Colorado Springs.

In 2005 I began to work internationally, serving on an interdisciplinary team that completed a health assessment of an area in rural northern Peru in an area of existing and proposed gold mines. Since then I have co-taught field schools in the Amazonian region of Ecuador and the southwestern coast of Guatemala and designed and taught workshops in qualitative research methods to mid-career professionals doing health-related development work in Bolivia.​

Scandlyn, Jean N., and Sarah Hautzinger
Forthcoming Spring 2014. Beyond PTSD: Reckoning the Post-9/11 Wars from Home. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

Hautzinger, Sarah, and Jean N. Scandlyn
Under Review. Heroes and Perpetrators, Volunteers and VictimsÑ American Veterans and the Weight of Pasts in Iraq and Afghanistan. In The Figure of the Perpetrator in Post-Conflict Fiction, Reportage, and Discourse. Eleni Coundouriotis, Samuel Martínez, Glenn Mitoma, and Cathy Schlund-Vials, eds.

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yn, Jean N., and Sarah Hautzinger
Forthcoming. Playing Set® to Discover Qualitative Data Analysis. The Qualitative Report.

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lyn, Jean, Deborah S.K. Thomas, and John Brett
Forthcoming 2013  “Theoretical Framing of World Views, Values, and Structural Dimensions of Disasters.” In Social Vulnerability to Disasters. Brenda D. Phillips, Deborah Thomas, Alice Fothergill, and William Lovekamp, editors. 2nd edition. Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press.

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dlyn, Jean N.
2012. “The Harmony of Illusions: Inventing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.” Review for The Canon series. Anthropology and Medicine.

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ndlyn, Jean N.
2009  “Local Conflicts, Global Forces: Fighting for Public Education in a New York Suburb.” In Border Crossings: Transnational Americanist Anthropology. Kathleen Fine-Dare and Stephen Rubenstein, eds. Pp. 171-210. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press.

Green, Tyler, Heidi Green, Jean Scandlyn, and Andrew Kestler
2009  “Perceptions of Short-term Medical Volunteer Work in Guatemala: A Qualitative Study.” Globalization and Health 5(4), Electronic Journal.

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candlyn, Jean N, Suzanne Discenza, and James Van Leeuwen
2008 “Integrating Interventions: Outreach and Research among Street Youths in the Rockies.” In Globalizing the Streets: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Youth, Social Control and Empowerment in the New Millennium. Michael Flynn and David C. Brotherton, eds. Pp. 235-261. New York: Columbia University Press.

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candlyn, Jean N., John Brett, and Sharry Erzinger
2008  “Practicing Fieldwork: The Transformational Value of a Collaborative Ethnographic Field School in Ecuador.” The Applied Anthropologist 28(2):204-216.

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candlyn, Jean N.

2004  “Exploring Children’s Rights in the World of Work.” Human Rights and Human Welfare 4:1-10.

ANTH 2102: Culture and Human Experience

ANTH 3101: Foundations of Cultural Anthropology

ANTH 4180/5180: The Nature of Power​

ANTH 4200/5200: Gender in Cross-cultural Perspective

ANTH 5840: Independent Study: Anthropology of the Body

HBSC 3041: Health, Culture and Society

HBSC 7011: Theoretical Perspectives in Health and Behavioral Sciences I

PBHL 3070: Perspectives in Global Public Health