Dancing doctor wins Fulbright

Dancing doctor wins Fulbright
Career-ending injury pushes alumna past pirouettes

BY JESSICA STARK
Rice News Staff

Armed with a dancer’s experience, a doctor’s education and a Fulbright scholarship, Mary Elizabeth “Mamie” Air ’04 plans to develop dance medicine as a field and advocate for dancers’ health needs on an international level.

Mamie Air ’04 plans to develop dance medicine as a field and advocate for dancers’ health needs on an international level.

This fall she will begin work on her Fulbright U.S. Student scholarship to research dancers’ health-care issues at the Hospital for Dancers and Musicians, The Hague, Netherlands.

“Dance is one of the few vocations in which professional capital and personal identity are dependent on the athleticism and aestheticism of the human body,” Air said. “As artists, dancers’ bodies are their instruments and their products, so an injury to the body is more than a matter of health. It impacts career, livelihood, artistic expression and identity.”

Like other dancers, Air had been told throughout her career that she would have to stop dancing to avoid further injury. Like other doctors, Air proved to be a terrible patient.

“The recommendation to stop dancing was like a death sentence, so I looked for ways around it,” said Air. “My head knew the medical reasons to stop, but my dancer’s heart couldn’t fathom not dancing.”

Her own career-ending injury lends context to her medical research. Air said that studies have shown that dancers sustain high rates of injury, yet fewer than half of the injuries are treated by a physician.

“In dance culture, injury and pain are hidden, normalized and even exalted,” Air said. “Most dancers perceive injury as an inevitable part of their career. I want to change that perception by documenting that improved access to care translates to better outcomes after injury.”

Balancing like a ballerina

For as long as she can remember, Air has been balancing her artistic and scientific worlds with the grace of a ballerina. Throughout her 18-year dance career, she has attained many academic honors and choreographed 10 modern dance works.

“Maintaining both passions is vitally important to my health and happiness,” Air said. “It has been incredibly difficult to pursue both, as the worlds of dance and medicine are equally time-consuming and demanding.”

While pursuing a degree in biochemistry, Air performed and choreographed for Rice Dance Theatre and performed scientific research at Baylor College of Medicine.

“I transferred to Rice from another prestigious university in order to achieve a better balance between my academics and my artistry,” Air said. “Rice provided an enriching academic environment with enough flexibility and opportunities to develop my extracurricular passions.”

Air graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Rice. She received a Robert C. Byrd Scholarship and earned membership in Golden Key International Honor Society, National Society of Collegiate Scholars and Phi Lambda Upsilon.

Air is enrolled in Yale University School of Medicine, where she has been involved in research in the Department of Endocrine Surgery. A native of Houston, she attended The High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and Mirabeau B. Lamar High School, where she was salutatorian.