Marlene Dobkin de Rios

Marlene Dobkin de Rios (April 12, 1939 – November 10, 2012) was an American cultural anthropologist, medical anthropologist, and psychotherapist. She conducted fieldwork in the Amazon for almost 30 years. Her research included the use of entheogenic plants by the indigenous peoples of Peru.

Early life and education

Dobkin de Rios was born in 1939 in The Bronx into a Ukrainian Jewish family. She was the daughter of Bernard Dobkin, a salesman from Kyiv, and Anne (née Schwartz), a bookkeeper whose parents emigrated from Galicia.

She conducted doctoral research on the Preclassic Maya's use of psychoactive plants. In 1972, she earned a Ph.D. at University of California, Riverside. Her dissertation was titled The Use of Hallucinogenic Substances in Peruvian Amazonian Folk Healing.

Career In 1972, Dobkin de Rios became a tenured professor cultural anthropology at California State University, Fullerton. She taught at Fullerton from 1969 until her retirement in 2000. Dobkin de Rios led fieldwork in the Peruvian and Brazilian Amazon for almost thirty years. Her research included the use of entheogenic plants by the indigenous peoples of Peru.

Personal life

On November 7, 1969, Dobkin married artist Yando Rios, son of Peruvian healer Don Hilde. They had two children.

Selected works