Caitrin Lynch, Ph.D., is a Visiting Fellow at RAI Institute (The Robotics and AI Institute) (Cambridge, Mass.), on the Robotics, Ethics, and Society team. She is also Professor of Anthropology at Olin College of Engineering (www.olin.edu), where she teaches courses in anthropology, design, engineering, and entrepreneurship.
Dr. Lynch was Dean of Faculty at Olin from 2021-2023. She is the author of two books: Retirement on the Line: Age, Work, and Value in An American Factory, and Juki Girls, Good Girls: Gender and Cultural Politics in Sri Lanka's Global Garment Industry. She is also producer of the documentary film, "My Name is Julius.” Dr. Lynch received her Ph.D. and M.A. in cultural anthropology from the University of Chicago and her B.A. in anthropology from Bates College.
Dr. Lynch's research and teaching passions include examining the dynamics of work and cultural values (with a focus on technology, aging, and gender) as well as the culture and political economy of manufacturing and technology. Dr. Lynch is committed to understanding social behavior in global contexts and is devoted to encouraging students to use qualitative methods to think critically about the world around them. She strives to expose engineering students to critical and ethical analysis and identification of the needs and opportunities in our aging world. One outlet for these efforts is her interdisciplinary service-learning course “Engineering For Humanity.”
Dr. Lynch is currently working on several projects:
1) with colleagues at RAI, projects on robotics and society—including a) a focus on labor and robotics as well as b) a focus on aging, care, and technology in the United States, considering the potential role of robotics in eldercare;
2) a NSF-funded project on curriculum development for engineering and computer science students to use artificial intelligence to enhance employment opportunities for people who are blind or visually impaired;
3) a book project focusing on a 150-year-old New England textile factory, in which she examines questions of outsourcing, precarious labor, technology, gender, and business competition.
