He earned his Ph.D. in cultural anthropology at the University of California, San Diego in 2003, and has been teaching at Dickinson since 2006. His courses focus on aspects of contemporary Japanese society, including popular culture, music, demographic change, health and aging, and technology. His current research examines discourses of demographic crisis, changes in elder care, and the development of robotics in Japan and Europe. This work has taken him both to Japan and to Europe (where some Japanese robotics technologies have found a home). His earlier ethnographic fieldwork among taiko drumming groups in Japan is the basis of his book entitled Taiko Boom: Japanese Drumming in Place and Motion (2012, UC Press). At Dickinson Professor Bender is affiliated as well with the department of Anthropology and the Health Studies Certificate Program.