Steven Rhue is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology and research associate in the Human Biological Anthropology Laboratory (HBAL). As a medical anthropologist and ethnographer, Steven’s work documents the impact of resource insecurity on human health and wellbeing. In particular, he is concerned with the inclusion of children’s voices in both research and policy concerning household water insecurity. His doctoral project, funded by the National Science Foundation (BCS-2215227), explores how children experience and perceive their wellbeing to be impacted by insufficient/unsafe water in the urban Amazon of Brazil. Steven’s dissertation is guided by 3 overarching questions.

1. What are children’s roles and responsibilities related to the use, consumption, and management of water within the home?
2. What activates do children engage in to address situations of insufficient or unsafe water for themselves and/or others in the home?
3. How do children, in their own words, perceive their emotional well-being to be impacted by their roles, responsibilities, and coping strategies related to water for the home? 

Steven is also first author on a publication in WIREs Water, “The effects of household water insecurity on child health and well-being”, the first academic review to synthesize the literature on children’s water insecurity. In addition to his academic responsibilities, Steven is a contributor in residence for Synapsis: A Health Humanities Journal, published by Columbia University, where he regularly authors public scholarship connecting medicine and the humanities.

External Awards 

• National Science Foundation Cultural Anthropology Program - Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant
• Tinker Foundation – Field Research Grant

Internal Awards 

• Office of International Affairs – International Research and Scholar Grant
• Global Arts+ Humanities Society of Fellows – Small Grant for Cross-Disciplinary Graduate Research
• Mershon Center for International Security Studies – Student Research Grant
• Department of Anthropology – DEM3 Anthropology and Development Fund
• Department of Anthropology – Daniel T. Hughes Memorial Fund
• Department of Anthropology – Larsen Research and Travel Award
• Department of Anthropology – Most Creative Work in Anthropology