Thomas Lyons, Senior Research Associate at the Great Cities Institute, works with Faculty Fellow Paul Goldstein as project director of the Institute’s “Healthcare Needs of Addicted Criminal Offenders” project. He is also conducting his own research project on HIV risk behavior among men recovering from methamphetamine addiction with a grant form the National Institute of Drug Abuse. His team has so far interviewed more than 30 recovering meth addicts out of an anticipated 80 subjects, and will interview them again after six months to examine changes in HIV risk behavior over time.

Other areas of interest include evaluating drug treatment programs, HIV care for jail and prison inmates, and the emotional and educational needs of children of incarcerated parents. He has written on narrative ambiguity in ethnography, health literacy, and health economics. Lyons holds a doctorate in cultural anthropology from the University of Chicago, and has done postdoctoral work in medical anthropology at the George Washington University.