Anthropology Graduate Students

Ashley, Jennifer
Geographical and Theoretical interests: Latin America, especially Chile and Venezuela; urban segregation, media, and social movements. MA Thesis: Mediating Fear: Discourses on Crime in Santiago, Chile.

Barry, Rebekah Callard
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: m ilitary cultures, veteran identities, and societal understandings of war and violence; Turkey ; the role of the Turkish military in the process of democratization and social formation in Turkey. Master's Thesis: “ The Appropriation of Culture in a U.S. Military Context: An Ethnographic Case Study”

Brunson, Jan
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Medical anthropology, anthropology and population studies, reproduction, gender, agency, family systems, life course, Nepal and South Asia. Master's Thesis: Women's use of contraceptives in the Kathmandu Valley : Enduring side effects and strategizing fertility. Dissertation: Reproducing Hierarchy: Nepali women's positions and embodiment of social change in the Kathmandu Valley.

Charest, Michelle
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Historical Archaeology, material culture, cultural identity maintenance and social cohesion, community studies, public/communal spaces, landscape studies, ethnicity, comparative historical immigration studies, consumption and consumerism. Ireland, North American Atlantic coast, U.K.
M.A. Research: Faded Receipts and Buried Walls: A Historical Archaeological Investigation of the Material Culture and Identity of the Cooper Family of Riverstown, County Sligo, Ireland . Illinois State University, 2005. Examines the means by which a rural middling elite Anglo-Protestant family expressed and maintained their identity in the face of the socially and politically inconstant world of 18th and 19th century Ireland. More

DeLair, Christy
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Contemporary Native American culture; Taiwanese indigenous groups; international indigenous rights movements; individual and community identity formation; indigenous media and representation; tradition; indigeneity; networks; kinship and material culture studies. Master’s Research: “Performing Tradition: The Negotiation of a Panethnic Community in Miss Indian World”. Dissertation Research: By looking at the relations between contemporary Taiwanese indigenous groups and indigenous groups around the world, I will try to answer questions of how peoples who previously see themselves as mutually distinct and distant come to see each other as similar and even related. I am particularly interested in the role that indigenous media and cultural programs play in the formation of new indigenous communities.

Doyle, James A.
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Mesoamerica, Maya civilization, political economy, urbanism, art, iconography, epigraphy.
MA Research : Variants in Classic Maya hieroglyphic day and month names. Dissertation Research: Settlement patterns, monumental construction, and environmental analysis in the region of El Zotz, Peten, Guatemala.

Ellison, Susan
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Latin America, especially Bolivia; political economy and political ecology; anthropology of development and US foreign policy; “studying up” of elite institutions and aid organizations, particularly around “democracy promotion” and conflicts over natural resources; religiously-based social movements and development organizations.

Esdale, Julie
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Alaska, the Arctic, hunter-gatherer archaeology, stone tools, palaeoenvironments, and site formation. My main interests lie in northern hunter-gatherer mobility during the Holocene, site location and formation, raw material acquisition and use, and behavioral adaptations to local and regional environmental conditions. Dissertation Subject: My dissertation research is focused on the archaeology of Northern Archaic (8000-4000 BP) period people living across the Brooks Range in northwest Alaska. I am looking at mobility patterns, site function, and activity-related tool production from archaeological sites composed of primarily lithic materials.

Fehrer, Kendra
Geographical and Theoretical interests: Latin America, especially Argentina and Venezuela; political economy; unemployment and urban anthropology; development processes beyond market measures.

Gohacki, Brian
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: The colonial maritime world; long-distance exchange systems; industrialization and ideology; class identity formation; archaeological ethics; forensic archaeology. MA Thesis: The Archaeology of the Steamship Omeo, 1858-Present. This paper explores the disconnect between economically-determined commercial practice and colonialist discourses on modernity and technology in the extreme periphery of the English colonial system in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Current Research: Co-Principal Investigator: field school in New England Archaeology at the John Greene Farm, coastal Rhode Island.  

Hoover, Elizabeth M.
Geographical and Theoretical Interests : Geographical interests are Native North America with a focus on the Northeast, environmental anthropology and environmental justice, and Museum Studies. MA paper was entitled "Arbiters of Authenticity; Living History in Native American Museums." This project examined ways in which living history museums run by Native people combated or perpetuated the stereotype of the ‘frozen Indian' that some say conventional museums perpetuate. I also looked at issues of authenticity that arise when museum interpreters attempt to think like their ancestors, and the role of these museums in preserving traditional art techniques. Current Research focuses on the effect of environmental contamination on the transmission of traditional environmental knowledge in Native American communities.

Judd, Maya
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Demographic anthropology, Anthropology of Europe, infertility, low-fertility, agency, gender, masculinity, Nigeria and Italy . Master's Thesis : "A Woman without a Child is No Woman at All": Coping with Infertility in Southern Nigeria . This paper investigates the ability of women without children and with very few children to survive and find a role for themselves in the community notwithstanding the very high fertility regime. Theoretically, I explore the concepts of structure and agency, and the challenges of establishing categories within demographic anthropological research. Dissertation Research: Concepts of male identity and masculinity within the context of Italian lowest-low fertility.

Kar, Sohini
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: India; gender; agency and subjectivity; religious minorities; citizenship; politics of development; the State and the production of knowledge.

Keefe, Susi Krehbiel
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Anthropology and population studies, Medical Anthropology, fertility, family planning, reproduction, gender, marriage, divorce, family life, Tanzania and East Africa. Master's Thesis Title: Permanency and Side-Effects: Female Sterilization Among the Pare in Ugweno, Tanzania. Dissertation Subject: Marriage and Divorce: Localized Islam and Gendered Relationships among the Swahili of Coastal Tanzania. This dissertation research incorporates methods and theory from the emerging field of anthropological demography to address marriage and divorce in the context of the dynamic relationship between Islam, gender and culture among Muslims on the Swahili coast of Tanzania. A crucial aspect of understanding these processes is to explore the complex and multidimensional nature of relationships between men and women in Swahili society. The Swahili people are recognized for their high divorce rates; indeed, divorce and multiple marriages over the life-course are described as the typical experience for Swahili women. This research examines divorce from a gendered perspective and clarifies cultural models and meanings of marriage and divorce among Swahili women and men. I consider marriage and divorce on a continuum of gender identities and social relations, not as isolated events.

Koriouchkina, Elisaveta
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Russia and the Former Soviet Union, migration, ethnicity and politics of identity, census and statistics, citizenship, nationalism. Master's Thesis: "The Russians Are Leaving? Anthropological Perspective on a Demographic Phenomenon". The paper offered an athropological perspective on the process of Russians' out-migration  from Kazakhstan to Russia. On the basis of interviews with Russians who are still present in Kazakhstan, the paper examined complexities of ethnic identity formation and showed its relative influence on informants' decision to leave or to stay. Current PhD Research: "Ethnicity in the State of Uncertainty (Meskhentian Turks and the Russian State, 1989-2005)

Leigh, Adriana
Geographical and Theoretical Interests:

Leitner-Laserna, Liliana
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Latin America (Colombia and Guatemala), South Africa; Medical Anthropology, especially in the field of global HIV/AIDS; Linguistic Anthropology, and specifically Discourse Analysis, as it relates to International Development and Public Health, with an emphasis on the study of HIV/AIDS stigma and processes of empowerment. More:

Leykin, Inna
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Anthropology of cultural and political transition, nationalism, citizenship, migration, anthropology of the state,  Russia and the Former Soviet Union, Israel and Jewish Diaspora.

Maldonado, Andrea
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Mexico City; urban anthropology; middle class identity constructions. Master's Thesis : "A Members' Only Community: Distinction and Performance of Self and Other within Social Clubs in Mexico City."  Walled, gated, and highly guarded social and recreational clubs in the Mexico City metropolitan area typically denote to the public a material and symbolic representation of prestige, exclusion, and privilege.  Based on participant observation and interviews with former as well as current club members, administrators, and employees, this paper seeks to examine the relationship between club membership in Mexico City and the ways in which class and status identity distinctions are socially and conceptually elaborated and negotiated within these spaces. Specifically, I explore and analyze the meaning of those discursive and social images, ideologies, and practices that club members employ and manipulate in their construction, explanation, and proliferation of boundaries that separate a class/status social “Self” from a class/status social “Other”. I am currently studying in Mexico City at CIESAS ( Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social) and at UAM-I (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa ). More

Mazzarino, Andrea
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: My research looks at how Russian women make decisions about sexual relationships, in a contemporary context of shifting gender ideals and socioeconomic changes.

Mesick, Cassandra
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Mesoamerica, the Maya; lithics, architecture, carving and building technology, the archaeology of labor, theories of technology, epigraphy. MA Research: I am currently researching the purposeful destruction of Classic Period Maya sculpture. This "mutilation" appears in systematic and predictable patterns on sculptures, usually manifested as awl or chisel marks on the eyes, nose, mouth, and cheeks of depicted individuals. While this type of modification characterizes the mutilation carried out during the Late Classic Period, I am also examining the deliberate fragmentation of Early Classic stelae at several sites, including Tikal, Guatemala. I am studying this phenomenon by conducting replicative lithic experiments and visual "autopsies" of relevant monuments, as well as through broad cross-cultural research. I hope to posit potential meanings motivating these actions and suggest that archaeologists reconsider their ways of conceptualizing and representing carved media.

Meyers, Rebecca
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Latin America, border studies, transnationalism and migration, critical security studies, anthropology of the state, indigenous movements and representation, anthropological demography. MA Research paper: Title: The Gendered and Ethnic Politics of Security in Tijuana, Mexico. Dissertation Research: Working Title: Contesting Security: Everyday Crossings at the Mexico-Guatemala Border. I will be conducting ethnographic fieldwork for my dissertation on the Mexico-Guatemala border from September 2006-2007. This work will build on my interests in border studies, security, and migration. I ask, how do people, whose social, ethnic, and family networks cross geopolitical borders negotiate daily life at a border that has been recently simultaneously opened for goods and capital (via CAFTA), yet closed to population movements due to growing security and military presences? In addition, how do local officials "perform or enact the state" in the face of such contradictions? What kinds of borders are locally important to people and how do these intersect, collide, or subvert geopolitical borders? I hope this research will enhance understandings of borders, the state, and migration in order to contribute to both anthropological theory as well as actual policies and public perceptions of transnational migration.

Millar, Kathleen
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Latin America, Brazil ; urban anthropology, the politics of the informal economy, class structure, marginalization, social movements and social change. MA Thesis: Explores the social organization and political activity of a community of trash-pickers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil .

Mouser, Audrey E.
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Southeast Asia, particularly Malaysia and Singapore; social and cultural constructions of gender and sexuality; fertility and reproductive health; reproductive decision-making; family construction and single-parent households; the impact of nationalism, ethnicity, and religion on demographic processes; agency, motivation, and individualization; symbolic capital; practice theory.

Nuhrat, Yagmur
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Turkey, urban anthropology, discourse about migration, nation-state formation and nationalism, claims-making. I study the reception and perception of migration in the city of Istanbul comparing how self-ascribed urbanites perceive of internal migrants versus foreign migrants. I try to trace nation-state socialization in the spheres of the city and the neighborhood while also seeking conclusions about claims-making in the city observed through visibility and as having implications on "othering."

Peters, Rebecca
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Lusophone Africa; International Development, especially the cultures of non-governmental health organizations; Globalization; Medical Anthropology, especially the study of reproductive health; Anthropology of Science and Medicine.

Porter, Colin
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: North America, particularly New England; Historical Archaeology, ethnohistory, contact-period colonialism, trade, warfare and compromise.

Prahl, Rebecca
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Social Movements, Empire and Globalization, Intentional Community, Consumption, Performance Theory, Critical Theory, Film and Media, Gender and Sexuality, Activist Anthropology, United States. Master's Thesis Paper: Unconventional
Conventionalists: "Dreaming It" at The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Reiser, Christine
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Historical Archaeology/Anthropology; Ethnohistory; Public Humanities; Museum Studies. Community; materiality; identity and heritage; memory; myth; landscape, movement, and the social uses of space. Native American studies; Northeastern North America. Master's Research: Safeguarding the 'Mint': An Analysis of the Fort Island Assemblage in Comparative Perspective; examination of a 17th century Native fortification on Block Island (Rhode Island), interpreted in the context of colonial trade and wampum production in the Long Island Sound with attention to the presence of similar palisaded structures found contemporaneously throughout the region.  Current Research: My dissertation focuses on the social networking of interethnic Native American hamlet communities in 18th and 19th century southern New England, particularly western Connecticut. Against repeated representations of such hamlets as ‘isolated' or ‘marginal', I explore the community-keeping practices that linked individuals and families in their social, geographical, and past-present landscapes. I am particularly concerned for the ways such practices can inform a notion of community as dwelling across a landscape and thereby challenge the limiting criteria by which we assess group ‘integrity' and ‘continuity' today. More

Rhine, Kathryn
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Africa (Nigeria), HIV/AIDS and Antiretroviral Therapy, Gender and the Life Course, Divorce and Widowhood, Anthropological Demography, Medical Anthropology. A.M. Research Paper "A Support Group as a Marriage Market: (Re)Marriage and Reproductive Intentions of HIV-Positive Hausa Women". Dissertation Subject: "Positive Living and ARVs: Marriage, Divorce and the Life Course of HIV-positive Women in Northern Nigeria": The introduction of antiretroviral therapies (ARVs) in Africa is transforming the HIV/AIDS epidemic. While HIV has long been considered a death sentence in Nigeria, access to subsidized ARVs is enabling thousands of persons with HIV to live a period of life without or with few symptoms. However, the prospect of living with the disease poses new challenges, particularly in navigating the powerful personal aspirations and cultural expectations surrounding marriage. I will conduct an ethnographic study among a population of infected and uninfected evermarried Hausa men and women, focusing especially on the experiences of women who are divorced and widowed, to examine questions of gender, agency, and the influences of diseases and their treatment on women?s expectations of the life course. More

Roberston, Molly
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: advisory services to maternal mortality committees, and continue to work on issues of religion, health and social justice in the U.S. and Brazi . I am particularity interested in the intersection of qualitative and quantitative methodologies in health research and I am committed to applied anthropology. My dissertation entitled, “São as Morenas que Gritam”: Race, Rage and Reproduction in Northeastern Brazil, explores the silence of marginality and how this silence plays a significant part in the analysis of racial disparities in maternity care in northeastern Brazil. Afro-Brazilian women are silenced in their pre-natal exams, in delivery rooms, and in the national debate over maternal mortality and morbidity. In addition, the interaction between women and the health system reinforces and reproduces racial stereotypes that place the blame for poor treatment on the women themselves. The silencing of the health concerns of Afro-Brazilian women and the reproduction of negative stereotypes are key to the creation and perpetuation of marked inequities in maternal care. My masters thesis, Migration and Marginalization: Health Knowledge and Practice in Garça Torta, AL - Brazil, demonstrated how social exclusion between two groups in a small fishing community in Alagoas-Brazil reflected and reinforced health-care knowledge divisions. This thesis detailed the ties between marginalization and drought induced rural migration and how these ties bolstered stereotypes and hierarchies that led to a lack of information exchange regarding medicinal plants in the area, ultimately prejudicing the health of a significant portion of the community.

Rogers, Juliette
Research interests: European Union food policy-making and implementation processes; the articulation between local food production and national/supranational policy; the symbolic value of foods; agricultural producers as political actors; nostalgia, rurality, and "tradition"; material culture, museums, and the representation of culture. Geographical regions: France (Normandy), European Union. Master's paper title: The Current Middle Ages: The Selective World of Authenticity in the Society for Creative Anachronism. Dissertation research: My dissertation will examine the interplay between cheese producers and advocates in the Pays D'Auge, Normandy, and articulations of the European Union bureaucratic structure down to individual policymakers. I am especially interested in finding the extent to which involved interests invoke or take account of the significance of name-controlled cheeses as iconic regional and national foods whose composition is altered as a result of EU laws. I hope to then consider those findings in relation to the effect they might have on the EU project of building a pan-European identity.

Rosenmeier, Leah
Geographical and Theoretical Interests:Archaeology and ethnology of North America (particularly Northeastern Arctic and Sub-Arctic); First Nations and archaeology; community-based archaeology; museum and community development; and cultural resource management.
M.A. Research: Through the analysis of new and existing faunal assem blages, my Master's paper examined the relationship between social organization and economy within 18th century Inuit society in Labrador, Canada. There was a significant community based archaeology project associated with our research that resulted in the publication of a children's book, Anguti's A m ulet, as well as development of exhibits for the White Elephant Museum in Makkovik, student mentorship and community outreach. Dissertation Title: Is There an Archaeology of Descent? Spatial Practice and the Archaeology of Communities in Mi'kma'ki. My dissertation research addresses long-standing and ubiquitous disputes between First Nations and archaeologists on the duration and nature of continuity between present-day groups and the past. An examination of Mi' maw spatial practice through an archaeology of Mi'kmaw communities in Nova Scotia , Canada , suggests that descent from previous generations can be demonstrated within greater material, social and cultural change than is often assumed when interpretations of continuity are based solely on patterns of similarity. Findings suggest that communities—social relations linked to locales, rather than similarities of material culture patterns, are the key element in understanding relatedness through time.

Ryzewski, Krysta
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Historical, industrial, and maritime archaeology of the Atlantic world (especially eastern U.S., U.K., and Caribbean). Comparative colonialism, contact period, anthropological archaeology, early historical industry and technology, material culture/materiality studies, maritime cultural landscapes, contemporary archaeological theory, heritage management and museum studies, archaeology of popular culture, forensic archaeology. Master's Thesis Title: “Changing Values in the International Auction Market in Antiquities: A quantitative and linguistic analysis of the London and New York markets over the past 50 years.” Cambridge University , U.K., 2002. Ph.D. Research: Building off of archaeological excavations based in Rhode Island, my research seeks to locate the anthropological dimensions of technology through examining innovation, cultural identity, materiality and ideologies surrounding the plantation-based ironworking industry and subsequent trans-atlantic networks in the pre-industrial, pre-capitalist 17 th and early 18 th century.

Skrabut, Kristin
Geographic and Theoretical Interests: internal and transnational migration (primarily focusing on Latin America-Peru, and the United States); identity politics, and correlates to inequality and health; Anthropological Demography, Political Anthropology and Medical Anthropology particularly relating to conceptions of the body and self under changing health/disease regimes. M.A. fieldwork (2007) in Callao , Peru studying migration, State -“Citizen” relationships, processes of formalization and identity (re)creation and “reclamation”.

Solomon, Harris
Geographic and Theoretical Interests: India and South Asia; anthropology of science and medicine; political anthropology; public health debates (esp. obesity and HIV/AIDS); transnationalism; embodiment; gender; sexuality. MA Thesis: "Brand Icon: Medical Tourism in India".

Soroko, Jennifer
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, political anthropology, democracy, militarism, missle defense, contemporary studies of US empire, colonialism and development. MA thesis: Water at the intersection of militarization, democracy, and development on Kwajalein Atoll, in the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

Thompson, Dondrea
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: national belonging; African-American anthropology; Europe (Sweden) Past Research : museums and politics of cultural representation; Dominican Republic, South Africa. M.A. Research/Paper: “The Politics of Display or the Display of Politics?: Cultural Policy and the Museum of Dominican Man”. Dissertation Research: National Belonging Among Black American Women in Sweden .

Trunzo, Jennifer
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Historical Archaeology, North American Archaeology, Great Lakes Archaeology, pre-contact North America, symbolic archaeology, archaeology of communities, identity, political economy and other Marxist approaches to archaeological interpretation, material culture, military sites, GIS, museums, ceramics. Master's Research: MA, SUNY Buffalo , 2000. MA Thesis Title: The Need to Integrate: A Survey and Critique of Processual and Post-processual Approaches to the Spatial Analysis of North American  Military Sites. This was a critical review of approaches to spatial analysis in archaeological thought. Doctoral Research: Working Dissertation Title: "Buying into it": Propaganda, Consumerism, and Becoming American In Revolutionary Period Connecticut. This dissertation uses anthropology, history, archaeology and sociology to analyze the American Revolution as a social movement. It examines consumer rhetoric that influenced colonial Americans to buy American-made goods and eschew purchasing British-made goods. It proposes that patriotic Americans served in the Continental military and participated it the boycott movements of the period, perhaps even destroying British goods they already owned in displays of patriotic sentiment. It will employ a stylistic analysis of historic period ceramics as well as clay provenancing studies on redwares to support that the boycotts were honored. The sites used in this study are located in North Stonington , CT and the data is being provided by the Mashantucket Pequot Musuem and Research Center. More:

Vanderhurst, Stacey
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Cultural anthropology and demography, migration and transnationalism, refugees, Nigeria, Ireland

Vares, Laura
Geographical and Theoretical Interests:

Walker, Caitlin
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: Archaeology of Mesoamerica, especially the ancient Maya; ceramic analysis and production theory; art and iconography; settlement patterns

Wawire, Salome
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: demography, HIV/AIDS, identity and identity formation, circumcision, adolescents and Africa.

Werner, Allison
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: transnational migration and migrant incorporation (particularly migration from Latin America to the U.S.); race and national identity; remittances and development; anthropological demography; critical theory. Geographical interests: Dominican Republic, U.S., Latin America and the Caribbean. MA Thesis: "A Category Apart: Race, Identity, and Assimilation Among Dominican Migrants in Washington, DC".

White, Paul
Geographical and Theoretical Interests: historical and industrial archaeology; colonialism; anthropology of work; history of technology; Newcastle Brown Ale. Dissertation topic: “Location, ReLocation, DisLocation: Western Shoshone, Western Miners, and the Contestation of Property Rights, 1870-1940.” My research examines interactions occurring between miners and Western Shoshone families in the Death Valley region, during a period when property and resource rights became increasingly subject to federal legislation. Specifically, this project will assemble archaeological, oral historical, and documentary evidence to record the land use and claiming histories of spring sites. In addition to tracking how resource laws were applied and misapplied to control valued non-mineral resources, I anticipate that this research will furnish critical, localized insights into the pathways and physical realities of dispossession on mineral lands.