Spotlight

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Benjamin Chabot-Hanowell - New CSDE Trainee

Benjamin Chabot-Hanowell has been awarded a CSDE Traineeship for 2009-10, funded by NICHD. He is a graduate student in Anthropology.

Benjamin’s research interests range broadly from migration and remittance behaviors in the Caribbean, to the rise and fall of ancient Mayan polities. His current collaborative projects include: an empirical critique of fluctuating asymmetry studies, which uses performance data from professional athletes (collaborator: Ben Trumble, UW Anthropology, CSDE); an application of economic bargaining theory to the geographic distribution of Mayan polity emergence and collapse (collaborator: Lisa Lucero, Urbana-Champaign Anthropology); developing agent-based and analytical models of emergent social inequality in small scale societies (collaborator: Eric Smith, UW Anthropology, CSDE); and extending economic bargaining models to address genetic relatedness effects and intergenerational transfers (collaborator: Donna Leonetti, UW Anthropology, CSDE). Benjamin is also planning a year-long dissertation field project on the behavioral ecology of migration, remittances, and kinship in rural Dominica, an East Caribbean island. His methodological interests encompass simulation and analytical modeling, social network modeling and analysis, mixed methods field research, and clear communication of scientific results to the public. A synthesis of economic, evolutionary, and ecological approaches is the theoretical thread running through Benjamin’s research. His pursuits are bereft without the support, inspiration, and love of his wife Malyse and daughter Alice.