2006 Annual Student Conference Participants

Discussants

• Arielle Aaronson (Tufts)
  Arielle Aaronson is a Senior majoring in Anthropology and French. She is interested in gender relations and conceptions of the body, particularly in the realm of sports, and is currently working on a Senior Honors Thesis. After graduating, she intends to pursue a degree in Translation Studies.
• Kimberly Allegretto (Brandeis)
  Kimberly Allegretto is a Ph.D. candidate in archaeology. Her interests include technology and culture, the archaeology of northeastern North America, and the application of analytical chemistry to problems in archaeology. Her Ph.D. research focuses on the adoption of maize agriculture in the Eastern Woodlands of North America.
• Jefferson Arak (Brandeis)
  Jefferson Starbuck Arak is a junior majoring in Anthropology and Latin American Studies. His interests are mainly non-Marxist social movements and indigenous life in Mexico and Central America. He also has a substantially longer-standing interest in media technology and filmmaking. As a freshman, Mr. Arak traveled to Costa Rica and Nicaragua, studying at the Institute for Central American Development Studies and most recently to Chiapas, Mexico with the Jane's Travel Grant. He is currently editing the footage gathered from summer research and hopes to incorporate these themes into a senior thesis and present the full documentary in his senior year.
• Vera Belitsky (Tufts)
  Vera Belitsky is a junior majoring in Anthropology and Community Health. Her interests include humanitarian aid, infectious diseases, and health in Russia, and the interplay of all of these with social and cultural forces. She has conducted research on US aid to combat tuberculosis in Russia and will continue her exploration of the topic this summer as an intern at the World Health Organization's Tuberculosis Control Programme in Moscow.
• Sarah Bettigole (Tufts)
  Sarah Bettigole is a freshman planning to major in something Biology-related, but has not narrowed it down yet. Whatever she ends up majoring in, she's pretty sure she wants to be a biomedical engineer in the future. She's also thinking about a double major or a minor in Anthropology.
• Laurn Contreras (Wellesley)
  Laurn KM Contreras, a resident of East Los Angeles, California is a current third year and dual baccalaureate candidate majoring in Anthropology and Theoretical Mathematics at Wellesley College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her career goals are to pursue an MD/PhD at a reputable university noted for its dedication to academic excellence, research, diversity and patient care. Ultimately, her goal is to become a role model and advocate for students underrepresented in fields of science, mathematics, engineering and technology.
• Stephan Edwards (Brandeis)
  Stephan Edwards holds a BA in history and philosophy from the University of Montana, and received his MA in history from the University of Connecticut in 2002. He was assistant professor of history and political science at Central Wyoming College before beginning the doctoral program in Anthropology at Brandeis University in 2005. He has presented papers on historical and anthropological theory, and has research interests in the areas of human rights, language identities and nationalism, and cultural responses to political oppression.
• Robin Hancock (Brandeis)
  Robin Hancock is a graduate student pursuing a Masters in Anthropology at Brandeis University. Her research interests include art and aesthetics, the effects of mass media on society and education and healthcare within disenfranchised communities. She has done research in South Africa on educational practices in Kwa-zulu Natal and in Northern Italy studying the relationship between art, religion, and society.
• Drew Harry (Olin)
  Drew Harry is finishing a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering this year. He is primarily interested in the ways in which technology can support distributed sociality and community. His past research has included work on the online and offline communities surrounding the board game Go, as well as comparative work on how cultural norms regarding mailing list etiquette are transmitted at Olin and Wellesley.
• Mara Judd (Tufts)
  Mara Judd is a Senior majoring in Anthropology and Judaic Studies, with a minor in English. She is most interested in issues in Physical Anthropology and Archaeology. Upon graduation in May, Mara will be attending the Reform Jewish Seminary, Hebrew Union College, as a part of the Rabbinical Studies Program, and will be studying for her first year in Jerusalem.
• Arnaud Lambert (Brandeis)
  Arnaud Lambert is a third year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology. He is currently working on a macro-regional analysis of the relationship between Olmec-style rock art and the emergence of sociopolitical complexity in Formative Mesoamerica and has conducted field research at the sites of Chalcatzingo in Morelos, Mexico (August 2005) and Chalchuapa, El Salvador (January 2006).
• Shoshana Maxwell (Wellesley)
  Shoshana Maxwell is a senior majoring in Anthropology. Her main interests include health care inequalities in underserved communities and child welfare. She enjoys working with young people, which she has the privilege to do as a counselor and reading tutor for inner-city youth. Shoshana explores her passion for acting through participation in theatrical productions at Wellesley. For the past three years she has examined the neurological disorder Rett syndrome by conducting laboratory experiments to explore memory and learning using mice subjects. Her spirituality has helped her maintain balance and peace in her life.
• Sean Munson (Olin)
  Sean Munson is a senior majoring in Engineering, with a concentration in Systems Design.  He developed an interest in relationships between Internet and community after a few years as an active political blogger.  Sean has also contributed to research in recruiting and retaining women and minorities in undergraduate engineering programs. He plans to combine his interests in anthropology and engineering to pursue a career in user centered design.
• Caroline Ong (Wellesley)
  Caroline Ong came to Wellesley College from Penang, Malaysia, to study Chemistry and Anthropology at Wellesley College. As a pre-med student, she blends her scientific and anthropological interests in her research of medical anthropology and queer culture, and plans to write her senior thesis next year on the culture within cancer wards. Her non-academic passions include poetry, rugby, diving and attempting loon calls.
• Amy Silverstein (Brandeis)
  Amy Silverstein is a senior majoring in Anthropology and Health, Science, Society, Policy. She spent a semester studying Spanish in Valparaíso, Chile and also 8 weeks in the Bolivian Amazon performing fieldwork within Tsimane' villages. Her fieldwork was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation and was performed in conjunction with the Tsimane' Amazonian Panel Study. She is currently completing her senior thesis about the disease etiology and treatment choices of the Tsimane'.
• Loretta Stein (Brandeis)
  Loretta Stein is a senior pursuing concentrations in Anthropology, Health: Science, Society and Policy, and Latin American Studies. Her interests include Health Care, Public Health, and Global Health Science. She has studied and conducted field work on health care in Santiago, Dominican Republic and Alejuelita, Costa Rica. She is currently working on her senior thesis about determinants of health in the Dominican Republic. Loretta plans to pursue a career in medicine and focus on public health and global health science with a special interest in the Latin American population.
• Alex Toplansky (Brandeis)
  Alex Toplansky is in his junior year at Brandeis University. Alex's primary research interest seeks to integrate our understanding of play and spirituality. Also a computer artist, Alex's past research has culminated in the completion of two 3d reconstructions of Mesoamerican ruins, a Brandeis first. Alex enjoys exploring beauty and fun in the world, and hopes the study of play will blossom into a full-fledged academic discipline sometime in the near future.
• Jerzy Wieczorek (Olin)
  Jerzy Wieczorek is a senior pursuing a B.S. in Engineering.  He is interested in developing user-oriented collaborative design techniques that help designers and engineers understand how the tools and systems they build are perceived and experienced by end users. Additionally, he is conducting interviews and field research to explore the diverse ways in which American accordionists have responded to their marginalized status relative to mainstream popular music.
• Philana Woo (Wellesley)
  Philana Woo is a senior majoring in International Relations. Her interests include people, post modernism, and good food. She is from San Francisco.

Discussants

• Mark Auslander
  Mark Auslander is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Director of the M.A. Program in Cultural Production at Brandeis University. He has done fieldwork in Zambia, South Africa and African American communities on ritual, politics, memory and landscape.
• Meg Grady-Troia
  Meg Grady-Troia is a Ph.D. candidate in the Anthropology Department at Brandeis University. She holds a BA in Growth & Structure of Cities from Bryn Mawr College, and continues her interests in urban space and place in her graduate research. She is currently finishing a project on urban methodologies and the ways in which classic urban theories of sociality affect fieldwork, and preparing to begin research on the sensory experience of the North End's public places.
• David Jacobson
  Dave Jacobson is a social anthropologist specializing in the study of urban life, families and households, and computer-mediated communication. His research explores the organization of diversity and the problem of social order; how cultural categories and social norms inform meaning and shape behavior and relationships; and the structure and functioning of social networks. His current work focuses on the cultural context of household economics and the organization of online interaction. He has conducted fieldwork in East Africa (Uganda) and the United States.
• Anastasia Karakasidou
  Anastasia Karakasidou is Associate Professor and Chair of Anthropology at Wellesley College. Her scholarly interests include nationhood and identity, illness and health, narrative and history, and anthropological theory. She is currently involved in the study of chemical pollution, the vulnerable human body, and cancer as a disease of modernity.
• Sarah Pinto
  Sarah Pinto is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Tufts University. Her interests are in medical anthropology, gender, reproduction, mental health, and caste identity in India, and her book, In Whose Hands: Birth and Loss in Rural India, is forthcoming from Berghahn Books. She is currently pursuing research projects on Dalit (formerly untouchable) women's experiences of mental illness in urban India and on public debates about genetics, caste status, and Indian identity.
• Peter Probst
  Peter Probst is an Associate Professor of Art History and Anthropology at Tufts University, where he teaches African art and visual culture. He has conducted research in Malawi, Cameroon, and Nigeria. His most recent book publications are Kalumbas Fest. Lokalitaet, Geschichte und Rituelle Praxis in Zentralmalawi (2006), Between Resistance and Expansion: Explorations of Local Vitality in Africa and Beyond (2004), and African Modernities: Entangled Meanings, Current Debate (2001). His current research project focuses on heritage art and politics in Southwest Nigeria.