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LEADR Completes a Successful First Year
This fall marks the one-year anniversary of LEADR (the Lab for the Education and Advancement in Digital Research), a new joint initiative led by History in collaboration with Anthropology and MATRIX Center for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences. LEADR functions as an interdisciplinary classroom, digital resource library, and a pedagogical and methodological support center located in 112 Old Horticulture. LEADR was initially funded by the Office of the Provost as part of an effort to create robust technology environments for teaching and learning at MSU. The Lab is staffed by three graduate assistants, including Brian Geyer from Anthropology, and is…
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Julie Fleischman and Sabrina Perlman Awarded Fulbright IIE Grants
Julie Fleischman and Sabrina Perlman have been awarded Fulbright IIE U.S. Student Program research grants. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential. Julie will conduct her dissertation research on Khmer Rouge regime violence by analyzing skeletal trauma and memorialization in Cambodia. Sabrina will conduct her dissertation research on the gender dynamics of self-managing type 2 diabetes in Ghana.
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Dr. Fenton and Dr. Hefner Selected for National Standards Committee
The Department of Anthropology is honored to announce that Dr. Todd Fenton and Dr. Joseph Hefner have been selected as inaugural members of the Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC) Subcommittee on Anthropology. This is part of the larger organization, National Institute of Justice and National Institute on Standards and Technology, made up of more than 500 forensic science practitioners and other experts who represent local, state and federal agencies, and are within academia and industry. Dr. Fenton and Dr. Hefner were announced in October 2014 as two initial members of OSAC’s subcommittee on Anthropology, and the first inaugural meeting…
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TLE Award Allows Purchase of XRF Instrument
With increasing archaeological applications of natural and physical scientific technology, there is an increased need to train students in their principles, application, interpretation and reporting. By doing this, students are able to compete successfully in a changing employment landscape. Working in tandem with Prof Tyrone Rooney (Geological Sciences), William Lovis and Rooney were awarded a $48,000 Provost’s Office TLE grant for purchase of a handheld (portable) X-Ray Florescence (pXRF) instrument for student training and research in advanced technologies. The Bruker Environmental Tracer unit acquired for this purpose will be housed in Geological Sciences. Lovis, along with graduate students Frank and…
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Spring 2015 Newsletter
The Department of Anthropology is proud to present the newest edition of the biannual newsletter. Our Spring 2015 issue features these articles: Spring 2015 Message from the Acting Chair: Dr. Laurie Medina Dr. Fenton and Dr. Hefner Selected for National Standards Committee TLE Award Allows Purchase of XRF Instrument Featured Faculty Member: Dr. Andrea Louie Featured Retired Faculty: Dr. Ken David Featured Adjunct: Dr. Jamil Hanifi Alumna Dr. Julie Pelletier: Working with Indigenous Communities Alumna Dr. Marita Eibl: Explores Government Opportunities Indigenous Graduate Student Collective: e-maamawizijig giizhiikamoowaad akinoowamaadiwinan Environmental Archaeology Research Partnership Graduate Student Awards, Grants and Fellowships Joshua Schnell Awarded…
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Indigenous Graduate Student Collective: e-maamawizijig giizhiikamoowaad akinoowamaadiwinan
In November 2012, Anthropology PhD students including Adam Haviland, Marie Schaefer, Kehli Henry, Nikki Silva, and Mike Cavanaugh, and law students from the Indigenous Law Program, including Sarah Donnelly, Nellie David and John Simermeyer, started a new graduate student organization at MSU for American Indian/indigenous students and other students interested in indigenous issues and scholarship. They created the Indigenous Graduate Student Collective (IGSC) to provide a space to collaborate, debate, and address common issues for graduate students working on indigenous issues across the University. The founding members were also inspired by a meeting with the University of Toronto Native Students…
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Environmental Archaeology Research Partnership
In 1974 and 1975 Professor William Lovis performed the original archaeological survey for what would become Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore – one of Michigan’s premier tourist destinations. Lovis had an opportunity to return to Sleeping Bear during summer 2014 as part of an interdisciplinary, inter-departmental, inter-institutional partnership with the National Park Service to investigate the effects of global climate change on endangered archaeological sites – their taphonomy and preservation. Working closely with NPS liaison Laura Quackenbush, under both Archaeological Resource Protection Act and National Environmental Policy Act permits, a team of researchers including G. William Monaghan, and Andrew Stewart…
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Featured Adjunct: Dr. Jamil Hanifi
Dr. M. Jamil Hanifi was born and raised in an urban Pashtun tribal social environment in preindustrial Afghanistan. He maintains native-level competence in Farsi and Pashtu- the two major languages of Afghanistan. He holds a BSc in police administration and MA in political science from Michigan State University. With innocent ambivalence and a novice academic interest in the contrast between his tribal background and hyper-modern American culture he continued his graduate studies in the combined anthropology and sociology program at MSU in 1963. Two events during 1963 and 1964 played a major role in causing him to follow his comparative…
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Alumna Dr. Julie Pelletier: Working with Indigenous Communities
Dr. Julie Pelletier’s planned to specialize in medical anthropology when she arrived at MSU. However, her academic career took a different direction when she was awarded doctoral research funding by the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians to conduct a project on indigenous identity. She completed the PhD program in 2002, after being hired into a tenure track position in Anthropology at the University of Minnesota – Morris (UMM). UMM had actually been an Indian residential school in the late 1800s. To counter this history, Dr. Pelletier faculty in English and a senior professor in History to create a…
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Featured Retired Faculty: Dr. Ken David
Dr. Ken David decided on Anthropology during his senior year at Wesleyan University of Connecticut. His major was the College of Letters (CoL). The CoL taught you to be a critic of literature, of historical accounts, and of philosophical works; this experience incited Dr. David to work quite directly with peoples’ thoughts and activities. He chose the University of Chicago’s Anthropology program for his graduate studies, and his major faculty influences there were Victor Turner, McKim Marriott, David Schneider, and Clifford Geertz. Having studied South Indian Music at Wesleyan, Dr. David was attracted to South Asian studies. For doctoral fieldwork…