People

PhD, Anthropology, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
BA, Ethnology and Anthropology, University of Belgrade

Opioid use disorder, pharmaceuticals, substance Use, harm reduction, opioid policy, health services, medical anthropology, ethnography

Milica Milic-Kolarevic is a medical and cultural anthropologist whose research interests include opioid use and substance use, pharmaceuticals and pharmaceuticalization, homelessness and housing instability, harm reduction, health inequality, and the implementation of health and social policy. Her teaching interests include medical anthropology, global health, pharmaceuticals and health, substance use and addiction, health policy, and the social and cultural dimensions of medicine and healthcare. She received her PhD in Anthropology from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities.

Her current ethnographic research examines responses to opioid use disorder, homelessness, and housing instability across Central and Upstate New York. Working with county governments, nonprofit organizations, public health agencies, healthcare and social service providers, and community organizations, she studies how policies and resources are translated into systems of care. Her work focuses particularly on harm reduction, treatment and recovery, housing and homelessness services, and the administrative, relational, and interpretive labor required to coordinate care across fragmented systems.

She is currently a Community Research Fellow at Hamilton College’s Levitt Center for Public Affairs and a 2026–2027 Nathan Fellow at the Rockefeller Institute of Government.