Catherine Lutz papers (Ms.2019.016)

Biographical/Historical Note

Catherine Lutz was born on January 22, 1952. She earned her BA in Sociology and Anthropology from Swarthmore College in 1974 and went on to receive her PhD in Social Anthropology from Harvard University in 1980. She has taught at Harvard University, Binghamton University, and at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is currently the Thomas J. Watson, Jr. Family Professor of International Studies and Professor of Anthropology at Brown University where she also directs the Watson Institute's Costs of War study, an attempt to calculate the financial costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Lutz is the author or co-author of many books and articles on a range of issues, including security and militarization, gender violence, education, and transportation. Writing and speaking widely in a variety of media, she has also consulted with civil society organizations as well as with the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the government of Guam. She is past president of the American Ethnological Society and was selected as a Guggenheim Fellow and a Radcliffe Fellow.