Recent PhD Carolyn Hurst was awarded the Ellis R. Kerley Scholarship from the Kerley Foundation in February 2013. “The Ellis R. Kerley Forensic Sciences Foundation was established in 2000 in memory of Ellis R. Kerley Ph.D., Forensic Anthropologist (1924-1998). Ellis R. Kerley, one of the leading anthropologists, was a pioneer force in the creation of Forensic Anthropology. The Foundation, a charitable organization, is dedicated to furthering the development of forensic anthropology by assisting students in the field of anthropology and continuing the research in forensic identification of the skeleton” (http://kerleyfoundation.org/about-us/). This scholarship is awarded based on character, personal and academic merit and commitment. Merit is demonstrated through leadership in school, civic and extracurricular activities, academic achievement, and motivation to serve and succeed. The award was conferred at the Kerley Reception for the Physical Anthropology section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.

We are delighted to announce the launch of the Praxis Network, a new partnership of graduate and undergraduate programs that emphasize innovative models of methodological training and collaborative research.

Part of the Mellon funded Scholarly Communication Institute’s current work on rethinking graduate education  the Praxis Network provides a closer look at selected programs that have taken unusual and effective approaches to core humanistic and social scientific methods, while also addressing how best to equip budding scholar-practitioners for a range of careers. The goals of each unique program are student-focused, digitally-inflected, interdisciplinary, and frequently oriented around collaborative projects.

In addition to the Anthropology Department’s Cultural Heritage Informatics Initiative, the Praxis Network features graduate programs at the University of Virginia, CUNY Graduate Center, University College London, and Duke University, as well as undergraduate programs at Hope College and Brock University.  The Praxis Network website, which is the first product of the partnership, takes the important step of sharing information about the commonalities and unique properties of these programs that are making effective interventions in the traditional models of humanities and social science pedagogy and research.

About the Cultural Heritage Informatics Initiative

Since its 2010 launch, the Cultural Heritage Informatics (CHI) Initiative has been a platform for interdisciplinary scholarly collaboration in the domain of Cultural Heritage Informatics at Michigan State University. Based in the Department of Anthropology, the CHI Initiative has two primary activities. First, the Cultural Heritage Informatics Graduate Fellowship Program is designed to provide an opportunity for selected graduate students to collaboratively develop a significant and innovative cultural heritage informatics project. Through collaborative project development as well as guided instruction, fellows gain the theoretical and methodological skills necessary to creatively apply information, computing, and communication technologies to cultural heritage materials, questions, and problems.

The second major activity is the Cultural Heritage Informatics Fieldschool, an immersive five-week summer program offered every other year to graduate and undergraduate students, as well as existing professionals in the cultural heritage sector. Based on the pedagogical model of the archaeological fieldschool, the Cultural Heritage Informatics Fieldschool is an intensive theme-based program that leverages collaborative project development to teach skills needed to build applications and digital user experiences that serve the domain of cultural heritage—skills such as programming, media design, project management, user centered design, digital storytelling, and more.

Sabrina Perlman, ANP graduate student, has won the Rita S. Gallin award for Best Graduate Student Paper from the Center for Gender in Global Context (GenCen). Her award-winning paper is entitled “Native American Women and Diabetes: Voices in Suffering and Solutions.”

Professor Emeritus Dr. Charles E. Cleland received the 2012 Midwest Archaeological Conference Distinguished Career Award http://www.midwestarchaeology.org/distinguished-career-award/ from outgoing President George Milner at the Annual Business Meeting. Last year’s recipient was Department of Anthropology Professor, Dr. William A. Lovis.

Congratulations to Andy Upton (Department of Anthropology PhD Student) who was awarded 2^nd place in the Annual Student Paper Competition for his paper entitled: “Preliminary Testing of the Efficacy of Shell Tempering as a Proto-Hominy Processor.”

Sylvia Deskaj (Ph.D. Candidate) has been awarded an Archaeological Institute of America Graduate Student Travel Award.  Sylvia will give a paper presentation at the 2013 Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and the American Philological Association (APA) Joint Annual Meeting in Seattle, Washington. She will present a paper (co-authored by Dr. Anastasia Papathanasiou, Greek Ministry of Culture) entitled “Spatial Analysis of the Neolithic Mortuary Landscape at Alepotrypa Cave, Greece” in the session entitled “Mani: The DIROS Project and Alepotrypa Cave.”  Last summer, Sylvia began work on the DIROS project in Greece, focusing on the massive Neolithic cave complex called Alepotrypa (Fox Hole), where she is studying the distribution of 100s of pieces of scattered human bone.