For those who have followed the events of the past year or two concerning the Institute for Field Research and its former director, a colleague writes with the following information. For those not up to speed on this, please search "Boytner" on this blog; for legal reasons I am limited in how much linking to past posts I can and want to do. I have slightly edited the following to keep it factual without commentary.
"The website of Twin Cairns, Ran Boytner’s new company, is up and running:
https://twincairns.com/
Boytner’s record at UCLA and IFR is probably why his name is nowhere to be found on the website. (For details see previous posts on this blog.) The investors would doubtless want to keep it this way.
Except that Twin Cairns is managed by Anthropocene Trust:
https://businesssearch.sos.ca.
https://www.anthropocenetrust.
And Ran Boytner is the Director of Anthropocene Trust:
https://rpanet.org/Sys/
![A UCLA Town Hall on #MeToo and related issues in archaeology leaves more questions than it answers--but confirms that an accused harasser and bully is out of a job. [Updated Aug 3, 2020: Ran Boytner's rival field school organization gathers steam, he says]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9vb9WCxKMJm9L_IJUbVGsEt5peGUJfeeiEVflOPOoftysV3SD4hvHrlfaJvKqlTCKcatEU4ppjuWj4mt5WnK8NCuLSRmEDS204bEjT8-AC7p6m-PObjcU8LrrhG5kMS3N6xN9FNSaDAXG/w680/IFR+wide+logo.png)
15 Comments
https://twincairns.com/company/Anthropocene%20Trust/
Project Manager/Part Time/Anthropocene Trust/United States/$35- $45 / hour/This is a project manager position at the Anthropocene Trust. The project manager will oversee grant requests and help the Director in the selection of worthy applications for funding.
Listing expired August 29. Young females who applied should be(a)ware.
Take a look at their Page Source
https://twincairns.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/US-CA-San-Bernadino-2019-3-Credit-Ran-Boytner.png?id=1196
https://twincairns.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/US-CA-San-Bernadino-2019-3-Credit-Ran-Boytner-1.png?id=1205
Looks like he is using images from this 2019 IFR field school
https://www.archaeological.org/fieldwork/the-san-bernadino-national-forest-california-crm-field-school-institute-for-field-research/
Can’t find it now, but someone commented a while ago that he’s using IFR photos also on his other websites. I betya that despite everything that happened they are all still in cahoots.
I follow you on Tweeter for some time, and noticed that you tweeted today about Kurin supporting Ran Boytner who was terminated from @IFR for “breach of trust.” You may be interested then to learn that he is actively pointing colleagues towards his new venture: Centre for Field Sciences (CFS).
https://www.fieldsciences.org/
As many of us now know, Boytner was credibly accused and/or found responsible for sexual misconduct at UCLA and IFR. The CFS board of directors are either unaware or do not care. https://www.fieldsciences.org/board-of-directors/
Is there something we can do to alert students and faculty?
https://michael-balter.blogspot.com/2020/06/a-ucla-town-hall-on-meto-and-related.html?commentPage=3
Citing “conflict of interest” with the Board of Directors, Ran Boytner has now parted ways from the ‘Center for Field Sciences’ (CFS). This is the same organization that he himself established in 2021, one year after being kicked out of another organization he created, the ‘Institute for Field Research’ (IFR). A conflict of interest and “breach of trust” were also cited by Willeke Wendrich back in the 2020 UCLA Town Hall meeting, when she finally divulged that the IFR Board of Directors had severed ties with Ran Boytner (https://michael-balter.blogspot.com/2020/06/a-ucla-town-hall-on-meto-and-related.html).
Not one to let reason cloud his judgment, Ran Boytner now created yet another new organization, this time calling it the ‘Anthropocene Research Center’ (ARC). A highly problematic title and research topic, considering that an international committee of geoscientists officially rebuffed the idea of the Anthropocene as an Epoch (https://www.iugs.org/_files/ugd/f1fc07_40d1a7ed58de458c9f8f24de5e739663.pdf?index=true). Equally problematic, this new ARC venture— along with the CFS, the now failed ‘Twin Cairns’ job board, and their overarching yet obscure ‘Anthropocene Trust’— were and are orchestrated by no other than Ran Boytner. The tax legality and academic integrity of it all have already been seriously questioned on Balter’s Blog and others, and raised above by the previous commenter.
Even more concerning, Ran Boytner is not taking any chances this time around. Making sure that others will not get in the way of his unethical get-rich-quick schemes, he appointed himself as Executive Director and CEO of the ARC, took the CFS field schools with him, and left behind the now redundant CFS Board of Directors to “independently” peer-review those at an arms-length (while conveniently, the ‘Field School Evaluation’ tool on their website is not working). And once again, a group of supposedly intelligent and critical academics has turned a blind eye and kicked the ‘sorgenkind’ down the road, likely to inflict more harm on a new generation of unsuspecting students and faculty.
There are other implications for this attitude of impunity: Ran Boytner is getting even more brazen. When he first started the CFS at the aftermath of the IFR debacle, his tainted reputation was still fresh in people’s minds, thanks mainly to the UCLA Town Hall meeting, Balter’s Blog, social media, and whisper networks. So to make it work back then, Ran Boytner needed to hide behind his new Board of Directors, and only last year finally dared to post his own name on the CFS website. At around the same time, he began publicly posting on his other failed scheme, the so-called ‘Twin Cairns Intelligence Unit’.
This time, Ran Boytner is plastering his name all over the ARC website, boasting his own origin story and trajectory through UCLA-IFR-CFS-ARC (while omitting those episodes of sexual misconduct and bullying, and why he constantly needs to reinvent himself every few years). And instead of a governing body that may get in his way again, Ran Boytner is now supported by a ‘team’ of two individuals who have little to no online presence, which is obviously highly improbable in this day and age. Hard to know if these people actually exist, since Ran Boytner hides them behind mugshots of hominins.
Which also brings us to the point of this comment. Faculty, colleagues, parents, and especially students’ memories may be short, and not everyone may remember or know who Ran Boytner is or what Ran Boytner has done. They may be tempted to sign up for any of Ran Boytner’s field school schemes, not realizing the risks.
But then… There is still Google, and now AI. Try it, and buckle up.
Besides Ran Boytner, there are the two team members listed as such on the Anthropocene Research Center page (https://anthroctr.org/team/):
“DORIAN CHEE. Dorian Chee joined the Center for Field Sciences at its genesis in 2021, operating first as Program Enrollment Manager. Chee was promoted to Enrollment Director in 2023. As CFS split into two different organizations in 2025, Chee is now the Director of Enrollment & External Relations at the Anthropocene Research Center.”
“KEVIN CILANTRO. Kevin Cilantro joined the Center for Field Sciences in 2022, managing all financial activities. Cilantro was promoted to Financial Operation Manager in 2024. As CFS split into two different organizations in 2025, Cilantro is now the Financial Director at the Anthropocene Research Center.”
Neither “Dorian Chee” nor “Kevin Cilantro” are, or ever were, listed as staff members on the Center for Field Sciences website. https://web.archive.org/web/20250000000000*/https://www.fieldsciences.org/
According to Google and AI search, the only association of “Dorian Chee” to the Center for Field Sciences are a couple of field school promotions from this year, and as author to a blog that is very similar to other blogs that Ran Boytner wrote himself. Beyond that, Chee does not seem to have an online presence in the US. According to AI Overview: “A different individual with the name Dorian Chee, a police officer in Belize, was mentioned in a 2009 news article. Given the different location, profession, and time, this appears to be a separate person”.
“Kevin Cilantro” does not seem to have an online presence. According to Google and AI Overview: “The name "Kevin Cilantro" is not associated with a specific, real person, but is rather a combination of the first name "Kevin" and the ingredient "cilantro," which are often linked together because of a popular product line. One of their most well-known items is their Cilantro Lime Chicken, which uses a sauce made with cilantro, lime, and garlic.”
Neither “Dorian Chee” nor “Kevin Cilantro” have real head shots on the Anthropocene Research Center website.
I guess there is still a chance that these are real people with minimal online presence but, considering Ran Boytner's propensity for chicanery, it is equally plausible that he made them up. Maybe they can provide more details on their website to dispel any doubts.
It is obvious that the images on the ARC page are lifted from the Kennis brothers’ overview page.
https://www.kenniskennis.com/overview/
Except that the left side of the image, where the watermark ‘Kennis and Kennis’ appears, has been cropped out on the ARC page.
The Kennis brothers’ website clearly states that these images are protected by national, international, copyright and other intellectual property laws. Prior consent is required for reproducing or publishing these images.
https://www.kenniskennis.com/rights-licenses/
If these images were being used with consent on the ARC website, then surely they wouldn’t need to hide the fact that they cropped the watermark.
That is besides the fact that the entire website is riddled with embarrassing typos, ones that basic Word spellcheck would have caught. The whole thing smacks of incompetence.
It’s always fascinating yet at the same time sad to witness how Ran Boytner, even when he tries his best, always manages to screw up so badly.
[Part 2 of 2]
Some fact-checking and comments on the post above
1. Another statement that it was the CFS Board of Directors who initiated the split due to an “inherent conflict of interest”, whereas they will take care of “impartial reviews of field schools’ quality” and Ran Boytner will take care of the “organization that operates and generates revenue”.
I do not doubt that, like with the IFR fiasco, the Board couldn’t wait to get rid of Boytner. But I also seriously doubt that they were the ones who decided it was time for him to start making money from their field schools. Wouldn’t be surprised if lawyers were involved again.
2. “the Board created the Anthropocene Research Center to run and manage field school as a separate entity”.
This is clearly not the case, as the Anthropocene Research Center is Boytner’s brainchild and is linked to his shell company-- the Anthropocene Trust (https://www.anthropocenetrust.org/home). All are listed to the same Los Angeles address. See also Mike Shannon’s comment above.
3. “We decided that to manage the new CFS, Dr. Ran Boytner will remain as a non-paid Executive Director, and that the Board of Directors will continue to function as a peer-review body”.
This is where it gets interesting, as no two organizations with the same Executive Director can ever be considered “two separate and independent entities”. Quite obviously an underhanded arrangement, which completely undermines the premise that the CFS peer-reviews of those programs under Boytner’s new organization will remain “impartial”. See also Mike Shannon’s comment above on the inherent conflict of interest within the CFS scheme. Another apparent conflict of interest is that some Board members continue to fund their projects through CFS. In 2024, Jennifer Mack received $48,545 for her Asylum Hill field school. This has now been passed on to the ARC. The one Board member who always baffled me was Jane Buikstra, and why she’d be involved with the CFS and the likes of Ran Boytner. Then it was revealed that she directly benefits from the Center for American Archaeology’s field school at Kampsville, of which she is the President. All of the above is an excellent case study for the next SAA Ethics Ball.
4. “The new CFS works with field school directors to collect relevant documents and to conduct CFS-sanctioned student evaluations at the end of each field school. These reviews are confidential…”.
There are a lot of comments “From student evaluation form” posted on the CFS website and here https://eval.fieldsciences.org/field-schools. Are these taken from the “confidential” reviews? Did the students give consent?
5. “To ensure we have adequate resources to maintain the site (web hosting, insurance, etc.), the Board of Directors instituted a policy whereby field schools will pay a nominal fee to become part of our evaluation system”.
So this is a paid service after all. And what do they need the insurance for? And who anyway would voluntarily pay to subject their field school to peer-review by a shady organization that is still puppet-mastered by the disgraced Ran Boytner?
6. “The new CFS began publishing reviews in Sep 2025”.
Yes they did, right here: https://eval.fieldsciences.org/field-schools. Except that it doesn’t work. Just play with the CFS/Student ranking on top to see what I mean. Also, fascinating how the written reviews are often negative, which obviously doesn’t match up with the high numerical ranking. More transparency on how those peer reviews are conducted, as well as an independent audit of this tool, will be required before it is of use to anyone.
7. “The new CFS will only engage in reviews of field school and will do so in an open and transparent manner”.
See points 1-6.
More to come.
“If you run your field school as a profit center, we are likely not a good partner.”
So precisely by their own definition, Ran Boytner’s new revenue-generating center is not a good partner.
Since you don’t need a PhD to see this glaring contradiction in terms (the same as with no two organizations directed by the same person can ever be considered as separate and independent), the obvious conclusion is that Boytner is manipulating the board to eliminate competition from other for-profit organizations who may want to advertise their programs through the CFS.
[Part 1 of 2]
https://eval.fieldsciences.org/
Not sure if Ran Boytner and the CFS Board of Directors meant for the world to see this quite yet, but the above URL links to their active back-end ‘eval’ webpage (and thanks for the anonymous tip). Their regular public site is still up at https://www.fieldsciences.org/, but has yet to include any of this information.
There is A LOT to say about the content, so I saved a copy of all pages in case they decide to change anything or remove it altogether.
For now, let’s start with this (also pasting the full text below for the purpose of record-keeping and tracking changes)
https://eval.fieldsciences.org/about-us/
“Our Story
This reinvention of the Center for Field Science originated in a 2025 Board of Directors decision to split the original CFS into two separate and independent entities. The Board wished to resolve an inherent conflict of interest – an organization that operates and generates revenue from field schools is conflicted if it also attempts to provide impartial reviews of field schools’ quality. Therefore, the Board created the Anthropocene Research Center to run and manage field school as a separate entity. The new CFS will only engage in reviews of field school and will do so in an open and transparent manner.
We decided that to manage the new CFS, Dr. Ran Boytner will remain as a non-paid Executive Director, and that the Board of Directors will continue to function as a peer-review body. The new CFS works with field school directors to collect relevant documents and to conduct CFS-sanctioned student evaluations at the end of each field school. These reviews are confidential and free of any input by program staff members.
All of these data will be published on each program’s webpage and will be transparent and relevant to all stakeholders engaging with archaeology field schools. To ensure we have adequate resources to maintain the site (web hosting, insurance, etc.), the Board of Directors instituted a policy whereby field schools will pay a nominal fee to become part of our evaluation system (see here). The new CFS began publishing reviews in Sep 2025.”
Some fact-checks and comments in the next post.