Christine Folch serves as Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology and holds a secondary appointment as Assistant Professor of Environmental Science and Policy at Duke University. She received her Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from the City University of New York and her B.A. in History (cum laude) from Harvard College. Prior to teaching at Duke, Folch served on the faculty of Wheaton College (Illinois). Her first book Hydropolitics: The Itaipu Dam, Sovereignty, and the Engineering of Modern South America (Princeton University Press) is an in-depth look at the people and institutions connected with the Itaipu Dam, the world’s biggest producer of renewable energy on the Paraná River border of Brazil and Paraguay. Folch has written extensively on water, energy, sovereignty in South America as well as cuisine and culture. Her current research projects include how U.S. evangelicals “care for creation” and respond to environmental devastation as an act of faith and a cultural history of yerba mate, a popular South American stimulating drink.