Kellogg Faculty Fellow Catherine Bolten, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Peace Studies, has been appointed director of doctoral studies (DDS) at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, effective July 1, 2018.
“It’s fortuitous for me to be stepping into this role at this moment because all of the previous directors have done a fantastic job of getting the program going,” says Bolten. “The PhD program is in a great place and offers many opportunities for me to build on a very strong foundation.”
Areas that Bolten hopes to strengthen include streamlining the degree completion process and support for all PhD students and enhancing relationships with Notre Dame departments who partner with the Kroc Institute in the dual degree program, which has 34 students currently enrolled. The PhD program has seen consistently excellent results, with five recent graduates achieving excellent job placements, including three tenure track appointments, for the 2018-19 academic year.
Bolten joined the Notre Dame faculty in 2009. She has been working in Sierra Leone since 2003, focusing on issues of memory, poverty, morality and post-war development. Her book, I Did it to Save My Life: Love and Survival in Sierra Leone is part of the University of California Press Series in Public Anthropology. She is currently working on a book based on field research conducted between 2006-2012, titled Serious Youth in Sierra Leone. Bolten has consulted for the United Nations World Food Programme and Physicians for Social Responsibility, and has conducted extensive fieldwork on ethnobotany, eco-tourism, and development in Botswana. Her articles appear in American Anthropologist, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Ethnologie Française, African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review, Journal of Modern African Studies, Journal of Political Ecology, and Journal of Anthropological Research.
Originally posted at kroc.nd.edu.