This is a photo of my wife, Debra Curtis taken while we were traveling in Kenya for a month in 1986. These were the days before children, before grad school and before it came time to pay back all those student loans. Deb has always been community minded and worked for a time in a battered women's shelter where she walked to and from work while completing her master's degree. She has an undergraduate degree in political science from Keene State College, a Masters degree in Public Health from San Jose State University and a doctorate in Cultural Anthropology from Rutgers University. She is a gifted ethnographer, teacher and writer. Deb is a respected scholar and was awarded a National Science Foundation Grant for her field work in the Caribbean. Her work includes papers co authored while she was a research assistant at Stanford University, reviews of scholarly work by others in her field and she has been chosen to present her papers annually at the national anthropology association meetings for several years in a row. She is currently an associate professor of anthropology at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island. 
This month, her first book, 'Pleasures and Perils: Girls' Sexuality in a Caribbean Consumer Culture' (Rutgers Press, 2009) is available on Amazon.com and will be taught in anthropology, sociology and sexuality courses in colleges all over the country. Her work in the field of girls sexuality on the island of Nevis has been enthusiastically reviewed by her respected peers.
In short, Debra Curtis is one of those wonderful people who, through hard work, force of will and steadfast perserverance has made the most of life's opportunities. The rest of us can only try to keep up and work harder even as we joyfully watch her fly on ahead.
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