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Samantha Hurst, Ph.D. is an Associate Project Scientist in the UCSD Department of Family Medicine and Public Health. As a medical anthropologist, Dr. Hurst’s area of content interest and expertise focuses on cross-cultural medicine and vulnerable populations. She is particularly interested in socio-cultural disparities in health and healthcare access, and gender-equity issues. She is an expert in the use of qualitative methodology and also works with mixed methods research design. Dr. Hurst's research collaborations span a rich variety of healthcare domains such as neurology, psychiatry, behavioral health, health policy, complimentary medicine, medical education, and tobacco prevention/education. For over two decades she has collaborated on projects working with a number of unique U.S. ethnic/cultural groups and international populations - American Indian, Australian Aborigine, First Nation [Canada], Maori [New Zealand], Somali-Americans, Yoruba [Nigeria], and U.S. combat veterans. These studies have included research such as alcohol and drug misuse, men’s health, youth violence prevention, sexual assault prevention and reproductive justice, psychological trauma and stress, cultural psychiatry, hypertension and secondary stroke prevention, and tobacco education/cessation/prevention.

Dr. Hurst participates in both university and public service as a board member for the African and African-American Studies Research Center at UCSD and as a Commissioner for the City of San Diego Human Relations Commission.

Dr. Hurst received her Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and completed her Post-Doctoral Fellowship training in Cultural Psychiatry and Medical Anthropology at the Alcohol Research Center at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla.