Tess Bird
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Full Curriculum Vitae

T e s s   B i r d 

human scientist | consultant | editor | writer

DPhil Anthropology
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University of Oxford (2018)
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MSc Medical Anthropology (with Distinction)
University of Oxford (2012)

BA School of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Honors)
University of Connecticut (2008)

Arts Trainings at: Glasgow School of Art (2007) and Hyde Park Art Center (2008/09)
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I’ve spent nearly a decade as a human scientist interested in our social and evolutionary capacity to navigate the unknown. I have a PhD and MSc. from the University of Oxford, where I conducted anthropological research with households facing major life transitions in the Northeastern United States. I later conducted a study on uncertainty and wellbeing with over 80 households in the early days of the covid-19 pandemic (see: Research + Teaching). 

After a series of disruptive events in my own life, I realized my ongoing research in the social/human sciences could inspire and help people outside the academic walls. I combed through countless ethnographic findings—which means insights driven by real people in real places, all over the world—as well as my own data from over a hundred households, and developed a simple system for navigating the unknown which I call “The Uncertainty Approach.” I’m currently working on a book that outlines this model and offer uncertainty coaching with individuals and organizations.

I have a BA in Gender Studies (University of Connecticut), with a focus on the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, and class. From 2018-2020 I was an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in writing for the social sciences at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where I taught courses on uncertainty, environmental change, social justice, and writing. I have also worked as a medical-legal researcher in industrial health and helped launch the Journal of Scientific Practice and Integrity (JoSPI.org). I now work as an editor in scientific publishing and remain a research affiliate at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology and a fellow at the Oxford Unit for Biocultural Variation and Obesity (oxfordobesity.org), both at the University of Oxford.

I’m a born-and-raised New Englander with a love for the forest, mountains, and the sea. You can find me at a hot yoga class, hiking the hills (always with a thermos of tea), dreaming by the sea, or enjoying delicious food in the company friends.

Portraits by Alexandra Michel Owens.

Copyright Tess Bird 2021