Casper ‘Cap’ Bendixsen, PhD

Cap is the director of the National Farm Medicine Center and is a tenured research scientist at the Marshfield Clinic Research Institute. He also serves as the associate director for the National Children’s Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety and the Upper Midwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center. He was raised on a farm and ranch in Idaho and competed in bareback bronc riding for nine years. He earned his bachelor’s from the University of Idaho and his doctorate in sociocultural anthropology from Rice University.

There, he researched the ethical lives of contemporary U.S. pastoralists. His current work applies anthropological thought and research methodologies to agricultural health and safety. These projects include investigating the attitudes of farm parents toward children’s safety—specifically, the risks and benefits of youth’s involvement with agricultural work, training rural firefighters in farm hazard analysis and mitigation, and the possible health benefits of the diverse and rich biomes that exist on farms.