Carolyn Rouse

Carolyn Rouse

AAA Executive Board President-ElectAssociation Operations Committee, President-Elect/Vice President

My Biography

Carolyn Rouseis the Ritter Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology at Princeton University. Her research focuses on race and inequality in religion, medicine, education, and economic development. She is the author of Engaged Surrender: African American Women and IslamUncertain Suffering: Racial Healthcare Disparities and Sickle Cell Disease and Televised Redemption: Black Religious Media and Racial Empowerment, and the manuscript Development Hubris: Adventures Trying to Save the World. Her current research is on declining white life expectancies in rural America. She is also the leader of High-Water Mark an engaged stormwater flooding mitigation project in Mercer County, New Jersey involving Princeton scientists, scholars, as well as local administrators and activists.

Carolyn Rouse earned an A.B. in anthropology and sociology from Swarthmore College and a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. Her work explores the use of evidence to make particular claims about race and social inequality. Rouse is the author of several books, including “Engaged Surrender: African American Women and Islam,” “Televised Redemption: Black Religious Media and Racial Empowerment,” and “Uncertain Suffering: Racial Healthcare Disparities and Sickle Cell Disease.” Currently she is finishing a book and film based on her work studying low life expectancies in a white rural community in California. Rouse was Program Chair for the 2012 AAA Meetings and the 2017 AAA/ASA Meetings. She also served as chair of two ad hoc committees for the AAA. Rouse has taught at Princeton University since 2000.