Constance Perin

As a cultural anthropologist, I've specialized in the study of professional work, knowledge, and value systems and how their differences affect the ways specialists collaborate. Fellowships, grants, and colleagues' invitations to participate in research projects have made possible my career as an independent scholar. Most recently, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Program in Global Security and Sustainability awarded me a grant for Research and Writing and the National Science Foundation earlier made a two-year individual award for field studies.

In the early 1990's I became a member of a study group in the five-year MIT International Program on Enhanced Nuclear Power Plant Safety at the Sloan School of Management. Before that, my field studies of professionals’ groupware use and telecommuting at the MIT Center for Coordination Science explored collaborative issues. In the 1980's, also at Sloan, I was on the staff of the Management in the 1990s research program. Being a visiting scholar in MIT's Program in Science, Technology & Society since 1997 enabled me to complete the fieldwork for and writing of "Shouldering Risks." Now, I'm a visiting scholar in Anthropology at MIT, where I'm studying theatre-making as a collaborative process.

My three other books were made possible by Guggenheim, Fulbright, and Ford Foundation fellowships, two Rockefeller Foundation residencies at the Bellagio Study and Conference Center, and visiting appointments at several universities here and abroad.

I received my AB and AM in Anthropology from the University of Chicago, a master's degree in City and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania, and a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from The American University. I belong to the American Anthropological Association, the Society for Cultural Anthropology, and the Society for the Social Study of Science.