Kathrine Starkweather, PhD

I am an Assistant Professor of Biological Anthropology at the University of Illinois Chicago. I am a Biocultural Anthropologist and Behavioral Ecologist who studies health, nutritional, and reproductive outcomes of human behavior. My work uses life history and developmental frameworks to examine how ecological and social factors interact to influence and shape behavior and biology, particularly as they relate to sexual division of labor, women’s economic work, and parental investment.

I conduct fieldwork with boat-dwelling Shodagor communities in rural Bangladesh, where I direct the Shodagor Longitudinal Health and Demography Project.

Currently, I am directing a new, 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).

I recently 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. Working with Melissa Emery Thompson in the CHmPP lab at the University of New Mexico, I am measuring between- and within-individual differences across two seasons in biomarkers of health and anthropometrics.