It takes a large, talented, dedicated team to do what we do. Our Culture, Health, and Environment Lab (CHELab) on the Tempe campus is where we come together to push forward an array of collaborative research projects. Our basic philosophy: work together to create a tide that raises all boats.

The CHELab is dedicated to research using and student training in rigorous, cutting-edge ethnographic and biocultural research methods. Our PhD students become experts, and end up with great jobs because of it. Up to 35 in-person and online undergraduates join the lab during semesters as research apprentices, gaining data management, analysis, and collaborative skills. Many more work with us in the field or in practicum courses learning about social science data collection by doing. In the summer, we are mostly off collecting data that we then spend the rest of the year cleaning and analyzing.

The core CHEL team is four faculty in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change who have collaborated together for many years: Biocultural/biological anthropologist Alexandra Brewis, cultural anthropologist Amber Wutich, linguistic anthropologist Cindi SturtzSreetharan, and educational anthropologist Alissa Ruth. We embrace team-collaboration, work efficiently, hold each other to the highest standards, innovate our approaches constantly, and value what everyone brings to the table.

We welcome scholars, postdocs, and students from any field to get involved in any of our ongoing projects. We have space for longer-term visitors, if you have a sabbatical upcoming! Contact any of us to find out more.

Some of the CHELab team 2019 (from left): PhD student Anais Roque (now faculty at OSU), Cindi, Amber, Alex, Fulbright visiting fellow Neetu Choudhary, former post-doc Roseanne Schuster (now faculty at ASU), former postdoc/PhD student Melissa Beresford (now faculty at San Jose State), CGH coordinator Charisse Jennas.
Our “Arizona Water for All” survey data collection team, December 2023.
CHElab interns and faculty helping with Megan Jehn’s amazing school filter local outreach project, Spring 2022 (click to see)
Spring 2021 CHElab meetings: A new format, and no cookies, but just as fun.
Fall 2019 CHELab undergrad meet and greet
  • Qualitative analysis retreat
  • Former student lab members Drew Blasco (now doing a PhD at NYU) and Meg DuBray (now faculty at Augustana College) presenting GES findings
  • Alex, Neetu, Alissa at the IAPA annual fundraising dinner (our students intern in Chennai with IAPA)
  • Alissa and lab-friend Russ Bernard at the annual student poster competition
  • Data collection team (2009) ready to start surveying
  • ASU homecoming outreach
  • Students doing outreach on child nutrition at the local library
  • Lab group 2016
  • Lab meeting
  • Amber and Alex with McKenzie Cotlow (center), first ever Global Health UG degree graduate in the US, 2008
  • Piloting data collection on the ASU mall
  • Former PhD student Melissa Beresford (now faculty at San Jose State) on her big day
  • Student Olivia Runes presenting lab team research
  • Outreach with pre-schoolers
  • Lab member Paula Kibuka Musoke completes her honors thesis (Alex, Amber, Paula, Roseanne)
  • Lab member Anais Roque (center) passes her MA
  • PhD!
  • Lab members PhD student Charlayne Mitchell and undergrad Sara Rodriguez enjoying their awards
  • End of year white elephant luncheon
  • GIC visits USAID HQ in DC (Roseanne Schuster, Alex, Peggy Ochandarena)
  • Another award for Amber
  • More awards – Charlayne, Meski, awardee Amber, Christine, Rhian
  • CHEL on the road (Alex, Cindi, former postdoc Seung YongHan – now faculty at ASU)
  • HWISE team in DC (Amber and Alex on left)
  • Hiding out in the ASU secret garden (Amber , Cindi, Alex, collaborator Jessica Hardin, and former postdoc Sarah Trainer now faculty at Seattle U)
  • Celebrating work-life balance
  • Celebrating life transitions
  • Dr Meredith Gartin, inaugural CHEL lab PhD, and the first global health PhD at ASU (now faculty at U Alabama)
  • Roseanne and Alex (right) in DC with HWISE and policy makers
  • Writing retreat