Charles Crabtree is an assistant professor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College, where he directs the Fundamental Needs Lab and co-directs the Government Department’s Honors Program. He is also a co-founder of the Baltic LEAP foreign study program. Crabtree's research focuses on discrimination, particularly among understudied identity groups and in underexplored contexts, with an aim to test theoretical mechanisms and develop improved methods for measuring discrimination. His interest in discrimination is deeply personal, shaped by his own experiences growing up in a low-income, bi-ethnic family where he witnessed class and ethnic biases firsthand.
Crabtree's work, including publications in top journals like the American Political Science Review and Nature Human Behavior, has documented discrimination across diverse identity groups, including those defined by disability, ethnicity, gender, race, religion, and, increasingly, class. He has conducted fieldwork in the U.S., Eastern Europe, and Japan, broadening his research to understand discrimination globally. His work has received media coverage and recognition from advocacy organizations, and he is grateful for funding support from organizations like the American Political Science Association and the Research Council of Norway. As affiliate faculty in several interdisciplinary programs at Dartmouth, Crabtree engages with colleagues in Eastern European Studies, Sociology, Quantitative Social Science, and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies.