Student Research Interests
Following is a list of current students and their research areas of interest. Click on a student's name for contact information.
M.A. Students
Chris Duffy
Economic Anthropology. Political identity and agency, nationalism, symbols of state legitimacy, globalization, anthropology of the European Union.
Allyson Goose
Cultural anthropology. Navigation of cultural differences within household settings.
Kelly Hacker
Medical anthropology. Inter-caste adoption in India, kinship and caste.
Terrance Hall
Anthropology of archaeology and tourism, Yucatec Maya, cultural constructions of identity, hegemony/agency/power, post-structuralism.
Nicolette Jonkhoff
Sociocultural. Humanitarian aid, development, gender.
Linda Langley
Cultural anthropology. Dynamics along the boundaries between cultures, land and cultural landscapes. Attitudes toward aging and "other"-ability; anthrozoology.
Ethnicity, identity, psychological anthropology, indigenous minorities, African Diasporic communities, globalization, social tension, politics, corruption, displacement, cultural and religious hegemony, hierarchical tensions, regional tensions, pre and post colonial African cultures, Swahili culture; East Africa, Kenya.
Ariel Meave
Sociocultural and linguistic anthropology. American college students, specifically identity and community development in the first-year residence hall experience; understanding human motivation and the roots of conflict and competition.
Erick Michael
Sociocultural, linguistic and urban anthropology. Religion and ritual, semiotics and performance, connections between culture, cognition, and communication; Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas.
Katherine Morley
Archaeology. Anthropology. Nationalism and historical identity, material culture, Orthodox Christianity, Early Middle Ages, religious syncretism; Northern Europe.
Kaitlin Rohrer
Sociocultural. Community-based responses to structural crisis, alternative social networks, systems of exchange.
Beth Semel
Psychological anthropology, trauma and mental illness, linguistic and racial ideologies; United States.
Kara Smotherman
Sociocultural. Immigration, computer-mediated communication; East Asia.
Urbanization in contemporary China, space, gender, households, citizenship, Taiwan.
Holly Walters
Archaeology. Religious and linguistic anthropology. Power and identity, roles of language and religion in social organization, cultural constructions of gender, gender-focused political movements, archaeological hoaxes; Northern Europe (particularly the Medieval period), India.
Adam Wassil
Virtual worlds, play spaces and their ideological locations and constructions; role playing; the fractured self and its many pieces; ethnohistory; ecological anthropology.
Nicole Welk
Visual anthropology. Material culture, public art and murals, art history.
Joint Masters in Anthropology and Women's and Gender Studies
Annora Borden
Sociocultural. Queer and feminist anthropologies, female aggression and sexualization in sports (particularly roller derby), femininity, gender, the body; United States.
Rebecca Gibson
Physical anthropology. Archaeology. Gender, the body.
Jennifer Skinnon
Cultural and linguistic anthropology. The role of cultural mediators such as language, religion, ritual and art in the creation of meaning.
Keely Swan
Sociocultural and legal anthropology, gender, violence, feminist advocacy and lobbying at the United Nations, 'traditional values,' postcolonial national identities, social movements, civil society and human rights discourse.
Samantha Turner
Political and legal anthropology, medical anthropology, science & technology studies, gender, sexuality, feminist & social theory, critical ethnic studies, and human development & social policy; North America.
Ph.D. Students
Rachana AgarwalSociocultural. Youth culture, education and nationalism in contemporary Palau, Micronesia. Postcolonial Studies. Anthropology of Science.
Emily Canning
Linguistic anthropology. Language ideology, ethnicity and nationalism, writing systems, religion. Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan.
Archaeology. Time, practice, meaning, collective memory, human/thing entanglements, agency, symbolic communication, political economies, and cross cultural interactions; Mesoamerica, the Maya, and the Yucatan past and present.
Bryce Davenport
Archaeology. Architecture, place-making, and the built environment; production, exchange, and ancient economies; material semiotics; categorization and systems of knowledge; ethnohistory and colonial changes in the Americas; physical anthropology and human evolution; Mesoamerica, the Andes, the Mediterranean.
Adam Gamwell
Sociocultural. Andean ethnography; social activism, resistance, cosmology, community among indigenous Andeans, politics of identity, existential anthropology, pragmatism.
Casey Golomski
Sociocultural anthropology, ritualization, cultural aspects of death and dying, self-other relations, personhood, life course, gender, material culture; Swaziland, South Africa.
Jessica Hardin
Medical anthropology, the body and embodiment, gender, food practices; exchange practices and Christianity in American Samoa, Samoa, and the diaspora.
Amy Hanes
Sociocultural. Politics of gender and development, anthropology of knowledge and the politics of competing epistemes, feminist pedagogy, identity, sexual and gender-based violence, anthropological methods; West Africa.
Anna Jaysane-Darr
Sociocultural. Reproduction, parenting and motherhood; the anthropology of media; medicalization; the South Sudanese diaspora. Postcolonial studies, transnational/diaspora studies, and critical theory.
Laura John
Sociocultural. Material culture, museums, landscape, and identity. Scotland.
Archaeology. The impact of the Classic Period Collapse on the sociopolitical and economic organization of the Postclassic Period Maya through the ceramic, lithic, and architectural analysis. Community formation, style, economic production and consumption, trade networks and exchange, and state collapse. Peten, Guatemala.
Katie Lukach
Archaeology, Pre-Colombian Mesoamerica. The Maya, commoners, and the construction of communities. Figurines, petrography and other material studies.
Betsy Marzahn-Ramos
Archaeology. Mesoamerica, Maya, role of secondary and tertiary settlements in regional political organization of Classic period kingdoms, social organization, style and political affiliation, space and place, semiotics, archaeology of non-elites, household archaeology, ceramics. Peten, Guatemala.
Casey Miller
Sexuality and gender; globalization and modernity; power, practice, agency, and resistance; civil society, social movements, and NGOs; Chinese grassroots gay men's HIV/AIDS groups. China.
Elisabeth Moolenaar
Sociocultural. Immigrant communities and identity issues (American-born Chinese youth in particular); migration, ethnicity and gender; globalization and transnationalism; neocolonialism and power; United States and South East Asia.
Ryo Morimoto
Semiotic anthropology, anthropology of disaster and loss; post-disaster trauma and social/cultural changes in relationship to the politics of memory; relationship between semiology and semiotics; Japan.
Donald Slater
Archaeology. The Maya, Mesoamerica. Caves, portals, cosmology, iconography, and power in Central Yucatan, Mexico.
Olivia Spalletta
Medical and economic anthropology, epistemology, causal models, phenomenology, language and power.
Mrinalini Tankha
Economic anthropology. Post-socialist tourism and transitions in money, labor and property in contemporary Cuba.
Allison Taylor
Sociocultural. Medical, psychological, and linguistic anthropology. Trauma, narrative, immigration/transnationalism; public policy applications of anthropology, especially related to mental health and social services for refugee and immigrant communities. The Somali Diaspora in Kenya and the United States (Minneapolis).
Mengqi Wang
Space and urbanization, housing market, shifting residential patterns and kinship relations; urban China.