Kim Fortun

Biography

Kim Fortun, Ph.D., is Professor and former Department Chair in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. She received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Rice University in 1993. Fortun served as President of the Society for Social Studies of Science from 2017 to 2019 and as Co-Editor of the Journal of Cultural Anthropology from 2006 to 2010. Her research focuses on environmental health governance and disaster studies, examining how scientific cultures and infrastructure shape governance across different settings globally.

Fortun has secured substantial external funding for her research, including a $7.5 million NSF grant as Co-PI for the CLIMATE Justice project and a $100,000 American Council of Learned Societies Digital Justice Development Grant for building the Environmental Injustice Global Record. She has also received funding from the California Department of Education for developing climate change and environmental justice curriculum for high school students. Her work spans multiple countries and contexts, from air pollution governance in cities across Asia to environmental justice issues in California communities.

Fortun is the lead developer of the Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography (PECE), open-source software that supports collaborative research in anthropology and science and technology studies. She has created multiple research platforms using PECE, including The Asthma Files, the Disaster-STS Research Network, and the Center for Ethnography platform at UC Irvine. Her 2001 book, Advocacy After Bhopal: Environmentalism, Disaster, New Global Orders, received the Sharon Stephens Prize from the American Ethnological Society. She serves on multiple editorial boards and advisory committees, including the MIT Social Sciences Visiting Committee and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Advisory Board.

Education

• Ph.D. in Anthropology, Rice University, 1993
• B.A. in History/Philosophy, Duke University, 1986

Distinctions

• President, Society for Social Studies of Science, 2017-2019
• Visiting Scholar, Institute for Advanced Study, 2001
• Sharon Stephens Prize, American Ethnological Society, 2003
• Distinguished Visiting Professor, Cambodia University of Technology and Science, 2022-2025
• Co-Editor, Journal of Cultural Anthropology, 2006-2010
• Rockefeller Postdoctoral Fellow, Cornell University, 1994