An accomplished educator and researcher, Danielle Kurin served as an assistant professor - and later tenured associate professor - in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) from 2013 to 2022.

The UCSB and the anthropology department have a number of projects addressing the Covid-19 pandemic. Of major concern is how the pandemic affects and spreads among native people, minority and poorer populations and communities in California but also across the United States and around the world.. Such groups are often quite vulnerable to infection and its spread given a lack of resources, information, and overall and specific health conditions. The case of the Navajo in the Southwest gained widespread media attention with case prevalence matching New York City, but the means to treat the disease no where close to matching New York's.

For one project, the UCSB anthropologists have focused on the Tsimane, an indigenous group in the Bolivian Amazon. The partnership brings together physicians, tribal leaders, and anthropologists and aims to develop a multi-phase plan to tackle the COVID-19 crisis. The team has produced information in a variety of formats, including local radio, to educate local people about the disease, its symptoms and its spread. The team has monitored cases and treatments and working closely with the local population, clinics and others to stem its spread. If successful, the knowledge gained from this project may helpful in developing lessons and a template for how best to help indigenous populations in other parts of the world with this pandemic and those that may arise in the future.