Bateson's work spanned from anthropology and communication theory to his studies of alcoholism and schizophrenia at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Palo Alto, CA.
Mary Catherine Bateson is a writer and cultural anthropologist. Bateson has written and co-authored many books and articles, and lectures across the country and abroad. She has taught at Harvard, Northeastern University, Amherst College, Spelman College and abroad in the Philippines and in Iran. In 2004 she retired from her position as Clarence J. Robinson Professor in Anthropology and English at George Mason University and is now Professor Emerita. She serves on multiple advisory boards including the National Center on Atmospheric Research and the NSF, dealing with climate change. Mary Catherine Bateson's books in print include Composing a Life, Our Own Metaphor, and Peripheral Visions, as well as a memoir, With a Daughter's Eye: A Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. Her latest is Composing a Further Life: The Age of Active Wisdom (Knopf September 2010). Bateson divides her time between New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
