Lauren Hayes

Lauren Hayes serves as Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Wyoming, where she conducts ethnographic research on labor systems, workplace discourse, and rural identity formation. Her work bridges cultural, linguistic, and economic anthropology through fieldwork in Appalachia, Wyoming, and Honduras.

Dr. Hayes investigates how flexible labor systems reproduce workplace inequalities while examining human adaptation to economic transformations. Her current research explores manufacturing, tech-based workforce development, ranching, agricultural labor, and care work across American rural communities, with special attention to gender dynamics and language practices. Previous work analyzed microloan borrowers' livelihood strategies in Honduras, establishing her focus on economic anthropology and women's labor experiences.

Her publication record (2012-2023) reveals consistent engagement with workplace ethnography across diverse settings including auto factories, Appalachian tech initiatives, and Honduran microfinance. Key thematic trajectories include labor precarity, contamination discourses, rural technological adoption, and intersectional feminist perspectives on work. Recent scholarship increasingly emphasizes applied anthropological methods for workforce development and workplace communication analysis.

Dr. Hayes actively mentors graduate students in rural work studies, women's labor, workplace communication, and economic anthropology while teaching core courses including Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Ethnographic Methods, and seminars in Economic and Applied Anthropology. Her research program demonstrates sustained commitment to understanding labor transformations in marginalized communities through rigorous ethnographic practice.