T. R. Kidder

The International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability (I-CARES) will celebrate its inaugural I-CARES day Friday, Oct. 19. The celebration will feature a talk by Peter H. Raven, former president of the Missouri Botanical Garden, on climate change and its impact on biodiversity, and a presentation by T.R. Kidder, professor and chair of anthropology, on the idea that we may be entering a new geological era, called the Anthropocene, in which humans are the primary geological change agents. There also will be activities for students, including a QR-code scavenger hunt.​

T.R. Kidder, PhD (left), professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences, shakes hands with the director of the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology of China during a ceremony announcing WUSTL’s new partnership with the institute. Henan is one of China’s most populous provinces and one of the most archaeologically rich areas of the world.

Humans today struggle with environmental problems such as a depleted ozone layer and global warming — influences of humans on the environment that put our own existence at risk. But humans altering their environment with disastrous results is nothing new. Just ask archeologist T.R. Kidder, PhD, professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences, who has spent the past four summers excavating the Han Dynasty village of Sanyangzhuang.