Cortney Hughes Rinker

Cortney Hughes Rinker is a Professor of Global Affairs and Director of the Global Affairs program at George Mason University. She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Irvine, with emphases in Feminist Studies and Medicine, Science, and Technology Studies. Her work focuses on medical anthropology, particularly exploring intersections between religion, healthcare policy, and identity formation in contexts such as end-of-life care, reproductive health, and pain management in Morocco and the U.S. She has conducted long-term ethnographic research in Rabat, Morocco (2005-2009), leading to her book Islam, Development, and Urban Women’s Reproductive Practices (2013) and later Actively Dying (2021), examining Muslim healthcare experiences in the Washington D.C. area. Her current research investigates palliative care and opioid use in Morocco, supported by the American Institute for Maghrib Studies.

Dr. Rinker teaches courses including GLOA 101: Introduction to Global Affairs and leads the Diplomacy Lab partnership with the U.S. Department of State. She has published widely in journals such as Medical Anthropology Quarterly and Arab Studies Journal, and serves on the editorial board of Anthropology & Aging. Her work bridges academic scholarship with applied research, addressing global health challenges through interdisciplinary approaches.

Key awards include recognition of her doctoral work as one of the Top 40 North American Dissertations in Cultural Anthropology (2010). Her research interests also extend to technology’s role in religious practice, public health policy, and Middle East Studies.