Barbara Rylko-Bauer

Barbara Rylko-Bauer is a medical anthropologist and Adj. Associate Professor at Michigan State University. Her work focuses on applying social science to social problems, on healthcare access and inequalities, the intersection of medicine and violence, narrative analysis, and slave labor and the Holocaust.

Her most recent book, A Polish Doctor in the Nazi Camps, has won recognition as a 2015 Michigan Notable Book, a 2015 IPPY Gold medalist for Biography, and a finalist in the Foreword Reviews' 2014 IndieFab Book of the Year Awards and the 2015 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. The book centers on her mother's experiences as a prisoner-doctor in Jewish slave labor camps. For more information, see www.rylkobauer.com.

Barbara was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, to Polish parents who spent parts of World War II incarcerated in concentration camps (mother) and a prisoner-of-war camp (father). They immigrated to the United States and Barbara grew up in the Polish-American enclave of Detroit. She initially studied microbiology at the University of Michigan, working for several years in research labs. Her growing interest in women's roles and status in society led her to anthropology and she eventually received her MA and PhD from the University of Kentucky. She currently lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan.