Kathrine Starkweather, PhD

I am an Assistant Professor of Biological Anthropology at the University of Illinois Chicago. I am a biocultural anthropologist who studies the relationships between environmental change (climate change and seasonality), women’s livelihoods, and maternal and child health and nutrition.

I conduct fieldwork with Shodagor fisher-trader communities in rural Bangladesh, where I direct the Shodagor Longitudinal Health and Demography Project. I use mixed-methods and between- and within-individuals study designs to determine how the effects of climate change, including seasonality, extreme heat, and flooding, are impacting maternal livelihoods in the Shodagor communities, and to elucidate the effects on infant and young child feeding, child growth and nutrition, and maternal health and nutrition.

Currently, I am directing an NSF-funded project on how environmental seasonality impacts social networks and mobility among Shodagor communities, and how seasonality interacts with sociality to affect risks and transmission of respiratory viruses (Influenza A & B, RSV, and COVID-19).

In 2022, I wrapped up a 6 year-long year-round, longitudinal data collection project measuring seasonal changes in individual income, household expenditures, and health and nutritional outcomes, funded by the Max Planck Institute. I also began new data collection in August 2019 as a part of my National Science Foundation-funded fellowship, examining the tradeoffs women make between productive labor and childcare, and how differences in time allocation affect maternal and child health.