Career
Sterk has been Charles Howard Candler Professor of Public Health at Emory since 2000. Sterk is a leading figure in both public health and anthropology studying addiction, mental health, and Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. She was the first person to identify the risk of Human Immunodeficiency Virus infection due to unprotected sex among crack cocaine users. Sterk is the author of two books—Fast Lives: Women Who Use Crack Cocaine and Tricking and Tripping: Prostitution in the Era of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. She has also published more than 100 articles and book chapters.
Sterk received a Doctor of Philosophy in sociology from Erasmus University in Rotterdam in 1989 on her dissertation Living the life: prostitutes and their health and a doctoral degree in medical anthropology from the University of Utrecht.