Release date: Sept. 9, 2004
Contact: Beverly Cox Clark at 404-712-8780 or beverly.clark@emory.edu

Emory Anthropologist Wins National Presidential Award

Joseph Henrich, an Emory University assistant professor of anthropology, is the recipient of a 2003 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the nation's highest honor for professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers, the White House announced today. He is the second consecutive Emory scholar to receive the award.

Henrich, whose work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, is becoming known for his research on the psychology of economic behavior, cultural learning and thought processes, and for contributing to knowledge about ethnicity, the creation of social classes and the evolution of human social institutions. His results are creating new options for policy makers in developing more targeted interventions in fields as diverse as public health, agriculture and conservation, says George Armelagos, chairman of Emory's Department of Anthropology.

"Joe's ability to make anthropology relevant to everyday life is a valuable asset to anthropology and Emory University, where he has become a role model to our undergraduate students and graduate students as a scholar, teacher and researcher. He is a prolific researcher whose work epitomizes an interdisciplinary approach that is capturing the interest of anthropologists, psychologists, economists and business school researchers," Armelagos says.

Henrich's research under his five-year Career Award, funded by the National Science Foundation, is focused on developing an interdisciplinary program in culture and cognition to study how children learn and acquire their ideas, norms, beliefs, values and thought processes. His work has involved building a field station on an island of Fiji in the South Pacific to study the indigenous culture there, as well as developing an on-campus laboratory and series of courses for undergraduates and graduates to study psychological anthropology and culture.

In a separate NSF-funded project, Henrich is one of the principal investigators in a comprehensive study of the behavioral economics of 15 small-scale societies. He is editor of a book on the project, "Foundations of Human Sociality: Ethnography and Experiments in 15 Small Scale Societies," which was published by Oxford University Press earlier this year. He is co-author, with his wife Natalie Henrich, of the forthcoming book "The Origins of Cooperation," to be published later this year by Oxford University Press.

The Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, established in 1996, honor the most promising new researchers in the nation within their fields. Eight federal departments and agencies annually nominate scientists and engineers at the start of their careers whose work shows the greatest promise to benefit the agency's mission. Participating agencies award these beginning scientists and engineers with up to five years of funding to further their research in support of critical government missions. Joining 56 other researchers, Henrich accepted his award in a ceremony led by John H. Marburger III, science advisor to President George W. Bush and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Emory University is known for its demanding academics, outstanding undergraduate college of arts and sciences, highly ranked professional schools and state-of-the-art research facilities. For nearly two decades Emory has been named one of the country's top 25 national universities by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to its nine schools, the university encompasses The Carter Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare, the state's largest and most comprehensive health care system.

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