Women Lead

Faculty Fellow Cat Bolten was featured in Women Lead 2019, a Notre Dame initiative to celebrate International Women's Day by highlighting the work of seven influential faculty members.  Bolten has spent nearly two decades conducting anthropological research in Sierra Leone and has published two books about her cultural findings.  As a core faculty member of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, part of the Keough School of Global Affairs, she currently conducts public health research to identify disease pathways and feedback loops between people and chimpanzees in the rural villages of Sierra Leone.  She notes that cultural anthropology is a field dominated by women, citing that "The inherently inferior social position you must put yourself in to be successful is, unfortunately, a more obvious role for women to inhabit.”  Bolten's academic and personal accomplishments are an example of success that can inspire future female scholars.