51ÁÔÆæ

Ann L. Greer, PhD and Professor Emerita of Sociology and Urban Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, died on 21 April, 2023 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. After studying for her undergraduate degree at Lake Forest College in 1967, she received a PhD in Sociology at Northwestern University in 1970. She returned to teach at Lake Forest College from 1970 to 1972 before moving with her beloved husband, Scott A. Greer, to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (51ÁÔÆæ). At 51ÁÔÆæ where she was Professor of Sociology and Urban Studies and served as director of the Urban Research Center. Her research started with participant observation of a mayor’s office (The Mayor’s Mandate, 1974), which showed how politics worked in a city often caricatured as a machine. While retaining her strong interests in cities, she began moving into health policy after a year in Washington, D.C. working for the federal government. In the health policy area she studied doctors’ decisionmaking processes, the adoption of medical technology, mental health policy, and the history and development of hospitals. Her skill as an interviewer and many interviews with doctors gave her a perspective on health care that was often at odds with the abstract concepts that drive so much health policy. She taught in 51ÁÔÆæ graduate programs and was deeply engaged with her PhD students and, through them, the city. She did extensive research in Britain and Canada. Later in life she divided her time between London and Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she is survived by her son, Scott L. Greer, a professor at the University of Michigan, and her granddaughter, Iris Jarman Greer.