Department of Anthropology

  • New Department Chair, Dr. Todd Fenton

    Dr. Todd Fenton

    The Department of Anthropology is pleased to announce Dr. Todd Fenton (Professor of Anthropology) as our new Department Chair. On behalf of the department, we would like to thank previous Chairperson Dr. Jodie O’Gorman for her years of invaluable service. Dr. Fenton looks forward to continuing this legacy and building on this strong department.

    Dr. Fenton has served as a faculty member with the Department of Anthropology since 1998 and is a renowned forensic anthropologist. Over his career, Dr. Fenton has developed an internationally recognized PhD program focusing on forensic anthropology and established the MSU Forensic Anthropology Laboratory (MSUFAL) as a premier consulting, research, and training laboratory. One aspect of his career of which Dr. Fenton is most proud is the great success of his graduate students, who have received high honors and earned top academic and non-academic positions in the field of forensic anthropology. As Director of the MSUFAL for eight years, Dr. Fenton engaged in and managed over 500 forensic anthropology cases with local medical examiner offices and law enforcement agencies, helping the community and providing instrumental experience for his students.

    Dr. Fenton’s research involves projects that seek to better understand the biomechanics of cranial and long bone fracture. The knowledge gained from this experimental research has critical implications for accurate analyses in forensic death investigations. To support this research, Dr. Fenton and a team of interdisciplinary colleagues received three large National Institute of Justice grants. In addition to forensic work, Dr. Fenton has ongoing collaborative bioarchaeological projects in Italy, including the study of skeletons excavated from an early Middle Ages cemetery in the ancient city of Roselle.

    For the past four years, Dr. Fenton has carried out departmental duties as Associate Chair. During one of those academic years, he was also awarded an MSU Academic Advancement Network Leadership Fellowship, in which he had the opportunity to shadow Dean Rachel Croson of the College of Social Science. In these roles, Dr. Fenton saw the profound and significant impacts an administrator can have for improvement. He sees being chair of this department as an opportunity to help the faculty, staff, and students in achieving their goals and to fulfill the great appreciation he has for the department, college, and university.

    Moving forward together, Dr. Fenton is committed to fostering an inclusive, safe, and welcoming departmental environment where all faculty, staff, and students are valued, respected, and celebrated. Dr. Fenton aims to improve the sense of community within the department and to ensure effective communication that strives for maximum transparency balanced with appropriate levels of confidentiality. He also intends to cultivate a more diverse and all-embracing environment in the department while working to increase the number of under-represented faculty members and PhD students. Dr. Fenton is resolved to be a strong advocate of the department to the administration and is determined to obtain the resources necessary for the department’s continued success.

    Dr. Fenton greatly enjoyed his years of mentoring PhD students in forensic anthropology and is now excited to work with current and incoming students across the department to help them develop their academic and leadership skills and become the next generation of anthropologists.

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  • PhD Student Brian Geyer Receives Fulbright-Hays DDRA

    The Department of Anthropology is proud to announce that PhD student Brian Geyer has received a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) award for his research on technology professionals in Nairobi and Kisumu, Kenya. His research project, entitled “Intersectional Identity Among Kenya’s Technology Industry Professionals.”

    His research will investigate how aspects of tech sector professionals’ identities, including gender but also ethnicity, religion, or socioeconomic status, affect their positions of social, political, and economic power in the sector. International development literature frequently discusses the importance of women’s empowerment as a means of lifting a population overall, especially within the most economically-productive sectors of a country’s economy. Additionally, international venture capitalist interest in the sector has increased significantly, which has in-turn boosted interest in the sector as a potential area for development. The research builds upon existing anthropological literatures that engage with the concepts science, technology, and society; identity production; and intersectionality and to critically contribute to development literature regarding women empowerment.

    You can follow his project through his online open field journal: No Mud Huts. https://nomudhuts.matrix.msu.edu/

  • New Research Associate, Dr. Gabriel Sanchez

    Dr. Gabriel Sanchez discusses coastal ecology with members of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band and University of California, Berkeley students
    Dr. Gabriel Sanchez (center) discusses coastal ecology with members of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band and University of California, Berkeley graduate and undergraduate students during an intertidal excursion on the central California coast.

    The Department of Anthropology is pleased to welcome Dr. Gabriel Sanchez, who joins us as a Research Associate after completing his doctorate in anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Sanchez is part of the inaugural class of the College of Social Science Dean’s Research Associate Program, which was established in 2018 and currently supports four distinguished research associates. This program promotes an inclusive scholarly environment, in which outstanding scholars in the social sciences support the advancement of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the academy.

    Dr. Sanchez is an indigenous and environmental archaeologist whose research investigates the ancient fisheries of the central California coast in collaboration with the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band and California State Parks. Through eco-archaeological analyses of animal remains from archaeological sites, Dr. Sanchez and his collaborators produce data relevant to contemporary fisheries management and information pertinent to the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band which informs cultural revitalization and stewardship.

  • Campus Archaeology Program (CAP)

    CAP at MSU's Science Fest 2019
    CAP at MSU’s Science Fest 2019 (behind table right to left: Mari Isa, Dr. Stacey Camp, Jack Biggs, and Jeff Burnett)

    The Michigan State University Campus Archaeology Program (CAP) provides a wide array of opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate students. Whether you are looking to get your hands dirty digging in the dirt or you want to help share some spooky archaeologically-inspired stories during CAP’s annual Apparitions and Archaeology event in October, CAP provides unique and innovative ways for both anthropology and non-anthropology students to learn about the past. CAP provides hands-on training and real-world experience in archaeological excavation, historical research, public outreach, and artifact identification and analysis. 

    Every other summer CAP runs an archaeological field school where students can obtain credit for helping to excavate and study a piece of MSU’s history. This past summer 15 field school students excavated an area of land next to Holmes Hall that once housed a homestead that dates to the late 1800s and early 1900s. The property was purchased by the Michigan State Board of Agriculture in 1953. Some of the students involved on this project are working as interns for the CAP lab. There, they are working to catalog and analyze artifacts from the field project as well as collaborating on research presentations and posters to share with our campus community.

    If you’d like an opportunity to be involved with CAP, contact Dr. Stacey Camp, Director of the MSU Campus Archaeology Program. Her email is campstac@msu.edu.

  • PhD student Kelly Kamnikar publishes in International Journal of Osteoarchaeology on chronic infection and health-related caregiving at Holliston Mills, TN

    Kelly Kamnikar, Department of Anthropology PhD student, recently published with colleagues in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology on their research from the site of Holliston Mills, Tennessee. The article discusses the bioarchaeology of chronic infection and health-related caregiving during the late Mississippian period at Holliston Mills.

    Read the full article at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/oa.2805

  • New Article in The Conversation by Associate Professor Mara Leichtman on Senegal’s History of Stability

    Department of Anthropology Associate Professor Mara Leichtman  recently published in a new article in The Conversation in which she explores the history behind and reasons for Senegal’s political stability compared to many other West African nations.

    Read the full article at https://theconversation.com/the-exception-behind-senegals-history-of-stability-113198

  • New Article in The Conversation by Associate Professor Gabriel D. Wrobel on Ancient Maya

    Department of Anthropology Associate Professor Gabriel D. Wrobel recently published in a new article in The Conversation in which he discusses how how trophies made from human skulls hint at regional conflict around the time of the Classic Maya civilizations collapse.

    Read the full article at https://theconversation.com/trophies-made-from-human-skulls-hint-at-regional-conflicts-around-the-time-of-maya-civilizations-mysterious-collapse-115025

  • Dr. Hourani Receives Multiple Grants for International Research

    man in front of painting
    Dr. Najib Hourani

    Najib Hourani, Assistant Professor in both Anthropology and Global Urban Studies, received a Fulbright Fellowship and a Council of American Overseas Research Centers Senior Scholar Fellowship for his new research project working with Syrian refugees in Jordan. His project seeks to understand their needs and aspirations for the reconstruction of their neighborhoods, towns, and cities. The project, entitled Toward a Positive Peace?: Urban Reconstruction in Syria, will have him conducting research in Jordan from August 2019-August 2020, with funded follow up work the summer of 2021.

    Congratulations to Dr. Hourani!

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  • Featured Faculty, Dr. Kurt Rademaker

    Featured Faculty, Dr. Kurt Rademaker
    man in hat
    Dr. Kurt Rademaker

    Dr. Kurt Rademaker started with MSU Anthropology in Fall of 2018. His research focuses on human biogeographic expansion into the Andes mountains and adds to our understanding of the timing and routes of initial human settlement of the Americas and the role of ecological variability in driving human adaptations and in understanding the relationships between humans and their environments. Learning about the human past is essential for understanding the history and evolution of the environments we inhabit.

    Dr. Rademaker’s current projects include excavations of archaeological sites from the Pacific Coast to the high Andes, as well as surveys in remote, unexplored areas to discover new sites. Archaeological sites indicate that people were connected over large areas, his research seeks to understand when and how those connections formed, how they functioned and were sustained over time. His work collaborates with physical anthropologists, paleogeneticists and earth scientists to study what past environments were like and how these have changed over time. It is thrilling to think about the first groups of people moving into new and uninhabited continents.

    Kurt’s team has discovered that ice age environments in the Andes were not as hostile as people used to think and that early Americans could settle these high mountain environments at the end of the last ice age. His work has been featured in popular media outlets such as National Geographic, the BBC, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Smithsonian, Sapiens, and many others. He feels it is important to share these discoveries with the global public. His work examines long-term Andean environmental change and its impact on past humans. He hopes what he learns will prove useful for current and future Andean people as they cope with climatic change.

    Rademaker’s Team at Cuncaicha Rockshelter

    Currently, Dr. Rademaker is expanding beyond southern Peru to build transects of archaeological sites and paleoenvironmental records along the Andes. This work will allow them to explore variability in environmental change and human adaptive patterns. He is excited to be a part of a strong Anthropology department with excellent, supportive faculty and a vibrant community of graduate and undergraduate students. One of his favorite things about his work is that every day has the potential of discovering something new that no one has ever learned before. This is true both in the field and the lab.

    Dr. Rademaker became interested in anthropology when he took an intro class as an undergraduate student at the University of Kentucky. By the time he took his second class, Introduction to Archaeology, he was hooked. That initial interest just deepened with time, after a field school and working in cultural resource management, leading him to pursue his PhD from the University of Maine in 2012. Outside of his work, Kurt loves exploring the outdoors with his wife Erica and their dog Cowboy and are glad to live in a state with lots of nature and opportunities for canoeing, hiking, camping. In the Andes and elsewhere he loves climbing high mountains and some of his other hobbies include motorcycles and gardening.

    Kurt has two new publications in preparation on the site formation of Cuncaicha rockshelter and the digital cranial reconstruction of a 9000-year-old Andean highlander referred to as the Lady of Cuncaicha. We welcome Dr. Rademaker and look forward to more exciting research. For more information about his work, check out his working group’s website: www.paleoandes.com

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  • Dr. Ethan Watrall Receives DEADDA Grant

    The Department of Anthropology is pleased to announce that Assistant Professor Ethan Watrall is part of a team recently awarded a European Cooperation of Science & Technology grant for the Saving European Archaeology from the Digital Dark Age (SEADDA) Project. The project is based on the premise that making archaeological data open and freely accessible is a priority across Europe because the digital realm lacks appropriate, persistent repositories. The result is that, due to the fragility of digital data and non-repeatable nature of most archaeological research, we are poised to lose a generation of research to a “digital dark age.”  Mitigating this crisis will bring archaeologists and data management specialists together to share expertise and create resources allowing them to address problems in the most appropriate way within their own countries. While important international standards exist, there is no single way to build a repository. To be successful, archaeologists must be at the decision-making heart of how their data is archived to ensure re-use is possible.

    The SEADDA Project, based at the University of York (UK) and made up of scholars from 26 countries, will address these challenges by establishing a priority research area in the archiving, dissemination, and open access re-use of archaeological data. It brings together an interdisciplinary network of archaeologists and computer scientists; experts in archaeological data management and open data dissemination and re-use. The project will create publications and materials, setting state of the art standards for archaeological archiving across Europe. The project will also organize meetings and training, allowing archaeologists from countries with archiving expertise to work with archaeologists with few or no available options, so they may share knowledge and create dialogue within their countries and move forward to address the crisis.

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