Department of Anthropology

  • Ph.D. Students Emily Milton and Jeff Burnett Awarded Department Funding for Research in Archaeology

    Ph.D. Students Emily Milton and Jeff Burnett Awarded Department Funding for Research in Archaeology
    Photo taken by Ph.D. student Emily Milton taken during her archaeological research in Peru.

    We are happy to announce the award recipients for the Department of Anthropology Archaeology Fellowships. Ph.D. student Emily Milton received funding from the William A. Lovis Research Fund in Environmental Archaeology, the Lynne Goldstein Fellowship, and the Alumni and Friends Expendable Fund for Archaeology; and Ph.D. student Jeff Burnett received funding from the Lynne Goldstein Fellowship.

    Each of the funds support archaeology students in the Department of Anthropology at MSU: for the Alumni and Friends Expendable Fund for Archaeology, the fund is intended to encourage archaeology students who have demonstrated the capacity to achieve educational and professional goals, the motivation to achieve these goals and the initiative to seek opportunities to further their progress. The fund is open to undergraduate and graduate students studying archaeology, and can be used for scholarships for fieldwork, fellowships, research, and travel. 

    The Lynne Goldstein Fellowship is awarded to graduate students enrolled in the MSU Anthropology Department with preference given to those students who have participated in the Campus Archaeology Program, and is intended to assist students doing their dissertation research. 

    With the William A. Lovis Research Fund in Environmental Archaeology, the endowment is intended to support interdisciplinary environmental archaeological research bridging anthropological archaeology and the natural, physical, biological and earth sciences. It is designed to underwrite and enhance the work of graduate students who investigate human/environment interaction for deeper time periods prior to Euro-American colonization episodes worldwide.

    Ph.D. student Emily Milton received funding from the William A. Lovis Research Fund in Environmental Archaeology to support exploratory analyses for a potential new approach for reconstructing Andean and Pacific coastal diets in southern Peru. As part of her dissertation, she will be investigating how isotopic methods can inform on Early Holocene diet in Peru. Her samples will include environmental substrates including water and plants; data from these materials will also inform on anthropogenic change in the present-day environment. 

    Milton was also awarded the Lynne Goldstein Fellowship to help her to create outreach materials for her research. She plans to use Storywork, an approach centered on visual art and storytelling, to share her findings with one of the communities she has worked with. Department funding will support both translated and interactive booklets, as well as support a new online project she hopes to begin this fall that will communicate her field and lab methods through immersive visual and audio media.  

    Lastly, Milton was awarded the Alumni and Friends Expendable Fund for Archaeology to complete data collection for her first dissertation manuscript, which is focused on isotopic measures of seasonal change in the south-central Andes of Peru. She hopes her findings will inform best practices of how archaeologists can isotopically study the archaeological materials from Central Andean sites. The award will support 140 isotopic measurements of water and plants that she will collect in her 2022 field seasons. 

    Ph.D. student Jeff Burnett received funding from the Lynne Goldstein Fellowship, and the funding will be used to support his dissertation project and to prepare him to apply for the Wenner-Gren Engaged Research Grant program, which supports engaged, community-based anthropological projects that work collaboratively with community groups. His dissertation project is an archaeological investigation of African American homeownership, community formation and memory-making in the historic Highlands area in the resort community of Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts. The Lynne Goldstein Fellowship will allow him to organize and host in-person research design meetings with a core group of collaborators.

  • Ph.D. Student Priyanka Jayakodi wins Dr. Delia Koo Global Student Scholarship and 3rd place in Shao Chang Lee Scholarship Fund Best Paper Competition

    The Department of Anthropology is pleased to announce that Ph.D. student Priyanka Jayakodi has won two awards from the MSU Asian Studies Center this past year: the Dr. Delia Koo Global Student Scholarship; and 3rd place in the Shao Chang Lee Scholarship Fund Best Paper Competition. The Dr. Delia Koo Global Scholarship is administered by the Asian Studies Center to provide scholarships to students from Asia and to further MSU’s interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body. The Shao Chang Lee Scholarship Fund was established by friends and colleagues of the late Professor Lee to provide scholarship awards for students who have made outstanding accomplishments in Asian studies and are pursuing or planning to pursue a program that includes Asian studies.

    Priyanka is a Sociocultural Anthropology Ph.D. student specializing in medical and environmental anthropology. Her research interests include the intersections of health, gender and environment, state violence, and social suffering. Her Ph.D. dissertation will examine the social and political aspects of water insecurity in the context of Chronic Kidney Disease of uncertain etiology (CKDu) in Sri Lanka. At the same time, she is also interested in studying how state violence and militarism in Sri Lanka affect health and wellbeing of certain communities more than others. Priyanka says that although these two research areas are seemingly unrelated, they focus on broader entanglement of lived experiences of marginalized groups in times of crisis.

    Priyanka’s previous education and research experiences were critical preparation for her current work: She obtained her BA and MA in Sociology from University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. Through her research there, she explored daily occurrences of stigma and how it’s manifested through different meanings attributed to CKDu and how the social values, healthcare system, and media influence stigmatization of patients diagnosed with CKDu. It’s through this research experience she became interested in studying water insecurity in the context of CKDu. At MSU, Priyanka has found success in building upon her ethnographic research prior to joining the Department of Anthropology Ph.D. program.

    Priyanka won 3rd place in the Shao Chang Lee Scholarship Fund Best Paper Competition for her paper titled: “Chronicity of Militarism: Sri Lanka’s Militarized Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic”. This paper was written for Dr. Heather Howard’s course, ANP 834: Medical Anthropology. Priyanka presented this paper at a panel entitled “Covid’s Chronicities” at SfAA 2022 Annual Meeting and she is working on publishing a book chapter based on this paper in a volume edited by Dr. Lenore Manderson and Dr. Nancy Burke. Priyanka is continuing to work with Dr. Howard to expand this research with ethnographic data and plans to publish a paper.

    Priyanka will use the funds she received from the Dr. Delia Koo Global Scholarship during her initial summer fieldwork in 2022 in Sri Lanka, where she will explore the multiple socio-economic and political dimensions of water insecurity in the context of Chronic Kidney Disease of uncertain etiology (CKDu) in the North-Central Province in Sri Lanka. Most of the time, dominant approaches to water insecurity focus on solutions that are technocratic, depoliticized and environmentally deterministic. Priyanka says: “I believe my study is significant because it aims to explore lived experiences of water insecurity at multiple levels (scale of the body or individual, household, and community) and how water insecurity is entangled with CKDu, poverty, gender dynamics, as well as neoliberalism”. Following the completion of her summer fieldwork project, Priyanka plans to host a collaborative photography exhibition on water security at MSU and initiate a reading group with fellow doctoral students in the college of social science who are studying water-related issues. Priyanka says these activities are especially significant because “Climate change is unarguably the number one global challenge faced by human beings around the world and specifically in underprivileged communities, and requires a broader discussion among fellow graduate students who are interested in studying water justice and water governance.”

    When asked about her long-term goals, Priyanka says: “I hope my research in Sri Lanka will make a positive impact on water policies there. My long-term goal is to become a professor in Anthropology at a public university in Sri Lanka through which I could disseminate knowledge, conduct research, and continue to work with the communities that are marginalized in multiple ways.” Priyanka would like to express her gratitude to the Asian Studies Center, whose funding makes her upcoming Summer research in Sri Lanka and photography exhibits at MSU possible. And she says that she really appreciates the mentorship of her advisor, Dr. Lucero Radonic whose work on water governance and water justice inspires her. She says Dr. Radonic encourages her to explore various innovative methods for doing ethnographic research. She also acknowledges Dr. Heather Howard’s continuous and unwavering support and guidance on her research.

  • MSU Anthropology professor and undergraduate participate in Smithsonian global oyster study

    MSU Anthropology professor and undergraduate participate in Smithsonian global oyster study

    Small “pit feature” or accumulation of oyster, other shellfish, animal bone and artifacts in Rhode Island dated to 100-500 years ago. Sites like this show the full range of sites used in the study, with this representing the smaller end of accumulation of oysters. Photo courtesy of Kevin McBride.

    Dr. Sanchez, MSU Department of Anthropology assistant professor, and his colleague Dr. Michael Grone, California Department of Parks and Recreation, contributed to the global study of Indigenous oyster fisheries, which synthesized over a century of archaeological findings from the San Francisco Bay Area. The synthesis of these data was supported by MSU Anthropology major Emily Westfall. 

    “I participated in the research to contribute to reimagining Indigenous-environmental relationships, specifically Indigenous fisheries, within archaeological, biological, and ecological literature,” Dr. Sanchez said. “So often, Indigenous relationships with culturally important species, such as oysters, are often minimized. I believe it is critical to center long-term Indigenous relationships with species, ecosystems, and landscapes within the academy and beyond.”

    Their research was a part of a global study co-led by Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History anthropologist Torben Rick and Temple University anthropologist Leslie Reeder-Myers. The study, published May 3 in Nature Communications, shows that oyster fisheries were hugely productive and sustainably managed on a massive scale over hundreds and even thousands of years of intensive harvest.

    Drs. Sanchez and Grone summarized the findings from over 30 San Francisco Bay Area archaeological sites. The study includes the earliest known archaeological site within the San Francisco Bay Area that provides evidence of human-oyster relationships that span the last 6,000 years, known as the West Berkeley (CA-ALA-307) site. Sanchez and Grone recently reanalyzed the West Berkeley site with several colleagues from the University of California, Berkeley, including Professor Kent Lightfoot, with the support of the National Science Foundation.       

    Westfall joined the project at the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year and conducted literature searches of all of the archaeological sites of interest to find historical data regarding the presence of oyster use by humans to support current data.

    “The research was important to me because even though I could not practice the hands-on methods due to the pandemic, it allowed me to gain insight into the other side of archaeology: the side involving writing articles and the background research,” Westfall said. “It was an invaluable experience as an anthropology major to be able to experience the whole process of archaeology research during my three semesters working with Dr. Sanchez.”

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  • MSU alum named Executive Director of the Hispanic Latino Commission of Michigan

    MSU alum named Executive Director of the Hispanic Latino Commission of Michigan

    In September 2021, the Hispanic/Latino Commission of Michigan (HLCOM) named MSU alumna Dr. Isabel Montemayor-Vazquez the executive director, and she began her role  that same month. Dr. Montemayor-Vazquez received both her master’s and doctorate’s degrees from the MSU Department of Anthropology. 

     “I was interested in this position because it marries my political science background and applied activist driven anthropology background perfectly,” Dr. Montemayor-Vazquez said. “In this position, I can advocate for the needs of the community, work with non-profit organizations serving the Latinx community, train different state agencies on structural and systemic inequities, and most importantly, contribute to policy change.”

    According to their website, the commission exists to advocate for the well-being of the Hispanic/Latino population with the vision of achieving an environment of social justice and economic parity for the Hispanic/Latino population. As executive director of the commission, Dr. Montemayor-Vazquez is charged with organizing the activities of the commission and working directly with the commissioners to serve as a bridge between state government and the communities of constituents they serve. 

    “It’s an incredible and humbling leadership role, where I am able to amplify the voices of the community through various grants, partnerships, and programs we have established. Working for the state of Michigan as a civil servant, there are few Latinas in positions of leadership, and so it’s an exceptional opportunity to serve as a mentor for young first-generation Latinas who have a similar background and family history .”

    As executive director, her first goals were to hold individual listening sessions with each of the commissioners to better understand how they see their role as commissioner. Another immediate goal was to recruit a legislative intern to assist in producing a legislative report in Spanish and English that follows legislative bills and their impact on the Latinx community. Increasing job opportunities and improving economic prosperity for the Latinx community are priorities found in the mission and vision of the commission, so a third goal was to create a Latinx job fair for recent college graduates.

    “I am proud to say that all three ofthese immediate goals along with improving the on-boarding process for our new commissioners have come to fruition.”

    Dr. Montemayor-Vazquez received both her master’s and doctorate degrees at MSU in cultural anthropology. During her time at MSU, she felt the most meaningful opportunity she experienced was being able to teach. Her teaching experience at MSU prepared her for accepting a professorship at UTA Arlington where she taught Sociology and Anthropology for six years. As executive director, she still has opportunities to teach on many of the topics that were interesting to her as a student and are pertinent to the Latinx community of Michigan. 

    Another meaningful experience during her time at MSU was when the department funded her and several other graduate students to present their research at the Society for Applied Anthropology conference in Merida, Yucatan. 

    “My research was centered around Michoacan and I had never ventured as far as Merida. It was such a unique experience to travel with fellow anthropology students to present in such an accepting environment, on a panel together, and also learn about the indigenous history of Yucatan together.” 

    Dr. Montemayor-Vazquez looks back on receiving her advanced degree in anthropology as a wonderful and useful tool in being able to give back to her community. 

    “I never could have imagined I would be able to use my degree in the community where I grew up and make a difference in so many people’s lives. The Hispanic/Latino Commission does a lot of work behind the scenes to ensure the Latinx community has the necessary platforms to voice their concerns. Additionally, the commission strives to provide ample opportunities for the Latinx community to thrive in the state of Michigan. It’s a privilege to work in this capacity and serve my community.” 

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  • Dr. Heather Howard publishes in Syndemic Magazine

    Department of Anthropology associate professor Dr. Heather Howard recently published an article in Syndemic Magazine. The article is titled “First Nations, Contagion, and Canada: The Lineages of Pandemic Colonialism the Americas.” In examining the pandemic’s ties to colonialism, the article states: “If the overall “trick” of settler colonialism is to convince settlers they are natives of the lands they subjugate, in the pandemic a further trick consists of treating colonialism’s consequences as so many particular cases of “disparities,” “susceptibilities,” or “local emergencies.” What might be called a syndemic clustering of settler colonialism, systemic racism and gender discrimination has been systematically obscured.”

    Read the full article at: https://syndemic.ca/2022/04/25/article-2/

  • Professor Emeritus Lovis Conferred Michigan Archaeological Society Merit Award

    The Michigan Archaeological Society, the oldest and largest avocational archaeological organization for citizen scholars in the state of Michigan, has conferred its highest award on Professor Emeritus William A. Lovis. The MAS Merit Award honors individuals “for sustained, outstanding, and significant contributions to Michigan archaeology”. This award recognizes Dr. Lovis’ half century of research into Michigan’s past, with scholarship resulting in numerous books, monographs and journal articles, as well as his long-standing association with and support for Michigan’s avocational archaeological community.

    Congratulations Dr. Lovis!

  • Dr. Gabe Wrobel wins 2022 Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentor of the Year Award for Michigan State University

    The Department of Anthropology is happy to announce that Professor Dr. Gabe Wrobel has received the 2022 Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentor of the Year Award for Michigan State University. This award is presented annually and recognizes faculty who have demonstrated an outstanding commitment to mentoring undergraduate researchers. This award is completely student-driven; only undergraduate student researchers can submit nominations, and the University’s Undergraduate Research Ambassadors choose the finalists. Honorees are selected with the following criteria: faculty members who demonstrate a commitment to undergraduate research, provide strong professional mentoring, and serve as role models in their field of study. Dr. Wrobel was nominated by Department of Anthropology undergraduate students Alison Weber, Collin Sauter, and James Waltermeyer.

    Dr. Wrobel’s work in bioarchaeology focuses on the analysis and interpretation of skeletal remains from archaeological contexts in cave and rock shelters in Maya communities in Belize. He established the MSU Bioarchaeology Laboratory in 2012, which provides opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to maintain and care for skeletal collections, work with databases, understand how skeletal remains provide insights about past human lives, and even publish or present work at academic conferences. Through projects and collaborations at MSU Bioarchaeology Laboratory, Dr. Wrobel provides exemplary mentorship to undergraduate and graduate students alike, inspiring future careers in bioarchaeology, forensic anthropology, and archaeology.

    One of those students is Alison Weber, who is working on her Bachelor of Science in Anthropology with a minor in Social Science Quantitative Data Analytics. Her primary interest is in Forensic Anthropology, and she is currently working in Dr. Wrobel’s lab studying how Macromorphoscopic Trait Data can be utilized from past populations. She has also had the opportunity to take a graduate level seminar with Dr. Wrobel. Weber nominated Dr. Wrobel because of the emphasis he puts on undergraduate research, which she says is “crucial to MSU producing successful and well-rounded anthropologists”. She said she also appreciates that Dr. Wrobel makes himself available to students, understands the stresses of being a student-researcher, and is especially supportive in the research design process and making dense topics digestible and understandable.

    Another student is Collin Sauter, who is working on his Bachelor of Science in Anthropology and Chemistry and is interested in digital archaeology and bioarchaeology. Sauter says he nominated Dr. Wrobel for the Undergraduate Research Mentor of the Year Award because “he is always readily available to guide me in my research, and he also helps me prepare for my academic future. I have a lot of freedom and control over my research project, but Dr. Wrobel is incredibly helpful when I need advice and guidance.” Through research and mentorship at the MSU Bioarchaeology Laboratory, Sauter has also found opportunities to present and publish his work, providing excellent preparation for a continued education and career in anthropology.

    Congratulations again to Dr. Wrobel for winning the prestigious 2022 Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentor of the Year Award for Michigan State University. We are proud to have such a supportive mentor and excellent researcher in the Department of Anthropology.

  • Team of Anthropologists organizes international ‘Teaching the City’ workshop

    On April 8th, 2022, over 220 international scholars and professors came together online to engage with pedagogical questions and practical case studies for a day-long virtual workshop on “Teaching the City”. The workshop designed around two core questions: “How do we teach about the city? What sits at the core of our educational and pedagogical explorations of urban spaces and socialities within Anthropology and its sibling disciplines? The organizing team was composed of MSU Department of Anthropology assistant professor, Dr. Lucero Radonic, Dr. Suzanne Scheld from California State University Northridge, Dr. Angela Storey from University of Louisville, Dr. Megan Sheehan from the College of St Benedict/St John’s University, and Dr. Claire Panetta from Pace University of New York. The organizing team also included three graduate students: Marwa Bakabas and Cara Jacob from MSU, and Hanadi Alhalabi from California State University Northridge. The event was sponsored by the Critical Urban Anthropology Association (CUAA).

    The workshop began with a roundtable discussion on “The Challenges and Opportunities of Urban Teaching: Thinking Across Pedagogies and Practices” that featured Hiba Bou Akar (Columbia University), Najib Hourani (Michigan State University), Martha Radice (Dalhousie University), and Maria Vesperi (New College of Florida). Scholars discussed how to work with diverse student bodies to interrogate and learn from both the banal and extraordinary aspects of cities across the globe.

    In the afternoon, the conference hosted two concurrent lightning talk sessions for which panelists prepared five-minute presentations to set up the floor for group conversations on pedagogical practices and approaches to teaching about and in the city. Panelists offered in depth discussions of syllabi and readings, writing exercises, and fieldwork projects.

    The first session was titled “Teaching Tools: Methods, Outcomes, and Engagement”. Drawing on teaching experiences from cities in Scotland, Canada, United States, Philippines, and Indonesia, presenters discussed the use of different techniques –including digital maps, participatory mapping, and photo-elicitation— to engage students in interrogating the urban experience that surrounds them.

    The second session was titled “Experiential Teaching and Big Concepts”. Panelists drew on course-based activities that took place on and off campus, virtually and in person, to discuss how they approached teaching core and complex concepts including inequality, infrastructure, affect and emotion. Presentations also highlighted how in teaching the city students (and faculty) are offered the opportunity to query the relationship between their institutions and the surrounding urban environment(s).

    The event closed with a keynote address by John L. Jackson Jr. who is the Richard Perry University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. This talk was titled “What Anthroman Might Still Teach Us about Urban Ethnography” and it discussed the many demands and expectations of ethnographic research and how to mitigate some of the methodological (and even psychological) challenges of qualitative urban research.

    Reflecting on the workshop, Dr. Radonic highlighted how “the online format allowed us to create a learning community across borders and across disciplines to exchange insights on pedagogy and the potential intersections between teaching and research in and about the city. It was inspiring to see how the zoom chat was always active as participants exchanged recommendations for exercises, readings, and engaged in discussions about accessibility, inclusion, and ethics.” MSU Ph.D. student and co-organizer Marwa Bakabas echoed Dr. Radonic, saying that the conference was an excellent opportunity to engage with a “wide variety of research centered on urban anthropology being conducted globally”, and that she enjoyed taking part in planning the workshop, reviewing proposals, handling logistics, and networking.

    As a next step the organizing team is planning to create a repository for syllabus and teaching materials to be hosted on the website for the Critical Urban Anthropology Association (https://cuaa.americananthro.org). Recording from the panel and lightening talks will also be made available there. Dr. Radonic remarks that “the fact that people are already sending materials to us speaks to the generosity and collegiality that can be fostered in academia.”

  • Ph.D. student Kelly Kamnikar and Dr. Joe Hefner publish a chapter in Avances en Antropología Forense.

    Department of Anthropology Ph.D. student Kelly Kamnikar and assistant professor Dr. Joe Hefner recently published a chapter in Avances en Antropología Forense. This chapter reviews population affinity estimation using macromorphoscopic trait analysis. The authors focus on the application of this method to Latin American groups and discuss refining broad categories used in population affinity estimation, like Hispanic. They aim to provide a starting point for investigation into biological distance and population affinity for practitioners working with Latin American populations to improve methodology used in identification of migrant remains at the Mexico-US border, and victims of violence that may occur in transit from one country to another.

  • Ph.D. student Kelly Kamnikar and Dr. Joe Hefner publish in Forensic Anthropology

    Department of Anthropology Ph.D. student Kelly Kamnikar, assistant professor Dr. Joe Hefner, and co-authors Dr. Timisay Monsalve, and Dr. Liliana Maria Bernal Florez recently published an article in Forensic Anthropology. The article is titled “Craniometric Variation in a Regional Sample from Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia: Implications for Forensic Work in the Americas.” This publication examines a sample from Antioquia, Colombia within a population affinity estimation framework. The authors aim to investigate intraregional variation via social labels within Antioquia and craniometric variation on a broad level, when pooled, as compared to other global, comparative samples. This research directly contributes to the refinement of the ‘Hispanic’ category in population affinity estimation models. While Colombians are not considered as one of the top clandestine migration groups to the U.S., the country has hosted a decades-long civil war where the missing and unidentified number into the 100,000s. Additionally, Colombia is geographically proximate to Venezuela and involved in current migration events, which could have forensic implications. This paper serves as a tool for forensic practitioners in the region who may encounter unidentified remains in their casework as a means for identification.

    Read the full article at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fsir.2021.100252

    Abstract: “Population affinity estimation is frequently assessed from measurements of the cranium. Traditional models place individuals into discrete groups―such as Hispanic―that often encompass very diverse populations. Current research, including this study, challenges these assumptions using more refined population affinity estimation analyses. We examine craniometric data for a sample of individuals from different regions in Antioquia, Colombia. We first assessed the sample to understand intraregional variation in cranial shape as a function of birthplace or a culturally constructed social group label. Then, pooling the Colombian data, we compare cranial variation with global contemporary and prehistoric groups. Results did not indicate significant intraregional variation in Antioquia; classification models performed poorly (28.6% for birthplace and 36.6% for social group). When compared to other groups (American Black, American White, Asian, modern Hispanic, and prehistoric Native American), our model correctly classified 75.5% of the samples. We further refined the model by separating the pooled Hispanic sample into Mexican and Guatemalan samples, which produced a correct classification rate of 74.4%. These results indicate significant differences in cranial form among groups commonly united under the classification “Hispanic” and bolster the addition of a refined approach to population affinity estimation using craniometric data.”