Recent Alumni
2021
- Phyllis Johnson (Dissertation: Beyond the Commoner/Elite Divide: Illuminating Classic Maya Multi-Agent Production Systems at Tamarindito, Petén, Guatemala [Link soon]). Current Position: University Research Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky
- Terren Proctor (Dissertation: Mercury, Mitayos, and the Violence of the Everyday: The Bioarchaeology of the Santa Bárbara Mercury Mines in Huancavelica, Peru (16th-19th centuries CE) [Link soon]).
2020
- Werner Hertzog (Dissertation: Commoners: Cooperation, Fairness, and Resource Management in Changing Tzotzil-Maya Communities, Southern Mexico ). Current Position: Researcher-Lecturer at the Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies, University of Zurich, Switzerland
- Keitlyn Alcantara (Dissertation: A Diet of Sovereignty: Bioarchaeology in Tlaxcallan ). Current Position: Assistant Professor, Anthropology, Indiana University Bloomington
- Tristan Philip Call (Dissertation: The Splendid Gifts of God to the South: Struggles for Control on Tennessee Plantations) Current Position: Visiting Assistant Professor in Sociology & Anthropology, Spellman College
- Emma Banks (Dissertation: Rising from the Ashes: Remaking Community Around Conflict and Coal ) Current Position: Mellon Partners for Humanities Education Postdoctoral Fellow: Tennessee State University
2019
- Carla Hernandez (Dissertation:
Legibility and Empire: Mediating the Inka Presence in Huarochirí Province, Peru
) Current Position: Assistant Professor, University of California-Santa Cruz.
- Monte Talley (Dissertation: Paradoxes in Sustainable Rainforest Production: Childhood and Child Labor in Açaí Extraction in the Brazilian Amazon ) Current Position:Placement program Manager at Nashville International Center for Empowerment.
- Tatiana Paz-Lemus (Dissertation:
Enacting Youth: political agency and youth subjectivities in Tactic, Guatemala
) Current Position: Universidad del Valle de Guatemala
- Scotti Michelle Norman (Dissertation: An Archaeology of Taki Onqoy: Revitalization and Entanglement in Colonial Peru ) Current position: Visiting Assistant Professor, Wake Forest University.
- Iyaxel Ixkan Cojti Ren (Dissertation: A The Emergence of the Ancient Kaqchikel Polity: A case of Ethnogenesis in the Guatemalan Highland ) Current Position: Assistant Professor, University of Texas-Austin.
2018
- Caissa Revilla-Minaya (Dissertation: Environmental Factishes, Variation, and Emergent Ontologies among the Matsigenka of the Peruvian Amazon ) Current Position: Postdoctoral researcher, Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institue, Germany)
- Ixchel Carmelina Espantzay (Dissertation: Ethnicity, Subalternity, Gender and Political Participation: Aspirations and Strategies of Mayan Women from the Highlands of Guatemala to Access Spaces of Power) Current position: Vice Minister of Bilingual and Intercultural Education for government of Guatemala and Lecturer at Universidad del Valle de Guatemala
2017
- Rebecca Bria (Dissertation: Ritual, Economy, and the Construction of Community at Ancient Hualcayán (Ancash, Peru); Current Position: Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Texas at San Antonio
- Jennifer Foley (Dissertation: When Worlds Collide: Understanding the Effects of Maya-Teotihuacán Interaction on Ancient Maya Identity and Community)
- Beth Koontz Scaffidi (Dissertation: Networks of Violence: Bioarchaeological and Spatial Perspectives on Physical, Structural, and Cultural Violence in the Lower Majes Valley, Arequipa, Peru, in the Pre- and Early-Wari Eras); Current Position: Assistant Professor University of California at Merced
2016
- Peter Mancina (Dissertation:
In the Spirit of Sanctuary: Sanctuary City Policy Advocacy and the Production of Sanctuary-Power in San Francisco, California.). Current Position: Research Associate, Center for Criminology, University of Oxford
-
Lauren Kohut (Dissertation
Cooperation through War: Late Intermediate Period Warfare and Community Formation in the South-Central Andes). Current Position: Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Bowdoin College
- Michael Kohut (Dissertation: Making Evolutionists and Creationists: The Causes and Consequences of Evolution Education in Tennessee ). Recent position: Qualitative Researcher at Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety & Quality
- Matthew Velasco (Dissertation: M ortuary Tradition and Social Transformation during the Late Intermediate Period (A.D. 1100-1450): A Bioarchaeological Analysis of Above-Ground Burials in the Colca Valley, Peru). Assistant Professor (2017-), Department of Anthropology, Cornell University matthew.velasco@gmail.com
2015
- Teresa Franco ( Dissertation : Paleoecology and Sedentism of Early Coastal Hunter-Gatherers in North Chile )
- Dan O'Maley ( Dissertation : Networking Democracy: Brazilian Internet Freedom Activism and the Influence of Participatory Democracy.) Current Position: Deputy Editor and Digital Policy Specialist at the Center for International Media Assistance at the National Endowment for Democracy . dan.omaley@gmail.com
- Kasia Szremski ( Dissertation : Shellfish, Water, and Entanglements: Inter-community Interaction and Exchange during the Late Intermediate Period (1100 – 1470 CE) in the Huanangue Valley, Peru). Current Position: Associate Director Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Brendan Weaver ( Dissertation : " Fruit of the Vine, Work of Human Hands”: An Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Slavery on the Jesuit Wine Haciendas of Nasca, Peru. ) Current Position: Post-doctoral Researcher, Stanford Archaeology Center, Stanford University
2014
- Jeff Shenton ( Dissertation : Schooling the Forest: Land, Legacy, and Environmental Epistemological Practice in the Upper Napo) Current Position: Director, Quality Enhancement Plan (Writing Studio) at Spalding University, Louisville, KY
- Jamie Shenton (Dissertation: The Bodily Logics of Aspiration: Intergenerational Perspectives on Adolescence, Exchange and Production among Kichwa Womenn in the Ecuadorian Amazon ) Current Position: Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Center College
2013
- Tomas Barrientos ( Dissertation : The Royal Palace of Cancuen: The Structure of Lowland Maya Architecture and Politics at the End of the Late Classic Period) Current Position: Chair of the Department of Archaeology at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala
- Jennifer Ann Vogt ( Dissertation : The Ambitions and Ambiguities of Community: State Policy and Artisan Cooperation in Rural Peru) Current Position: Innovation Manager in Social Financial Services at Ashoka
2012
- Jake Sauer ( Dissertation : Long-Term Resilience in Cultural Systems: An Araucanian Example from Santa Sylvia, South-Central Chile) Current Position: Research Assistant Professor, Anthropology, Vanderbilt University
- Jennifer Zovar ( Dissertation : Post-Collapse Constructions of Community, Memory, and Identity: An Archaeological Analysis of Late Intermediate Period Community Formation in Bolivia’s Desaguadero Valley) Current position: Assistant Professor at Whatcom Community College (Bellingham, WA).
- Danielle Kurin ( Dissertation : The Bioarchaeology of Collapse: Ethnogenesis and Ethnocide in Post-Imperial Andahuaylas, Peru (AD 900 - 1250)) Current position: Assistant Professor at University of California-Santa Barbara
2011
- Anna Catesby Yant
(
Dissertation
:
Powerful Buildings: The Evolution of Non-domestic Architecture and Social Interaction in the Puuc) Current position: Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, Assistant Director of CASPAR and the Director of A&S Tutoring at Vanderbilt
2010
- Molly Morgan ( Dissertation : Fixing Residence: Formative Period Place Making at Chiquiuitan, Guatemala) Current Position: Senior Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, Rice University.
- Carrie Anne Berryman - (Disseration: Food, Feasts, and the Construction of Identity and Power in Ancient Tiwanaku: A Bioarchaeological Perspective)
2009
- John Tomasic ( Dissertation : Investigating Terminal Preclassic and Classic Period Power and Wealth at K'o, Guatemala) Current position: Archaeologist with the Kansas Historical Society in Topeka
2008
- Michael Callaghan ( Dissertation : Technologies of Power: Ritual Economy and Ceramic Production in the Terminal Preclassic Period Holmul Region, Guatemala) Current Position: Associate Professor of Anthropology, Central Florida University
- Avery Dickins de Girón (Dissertation: Balancing Inequalities and Opportunities: Globalization and Development in Q'eqchi' Maya Communities in Guatemala) Current position: Executive Director and Senior Lecturer, Center for Latin American Studies
2007
- Alberto Esquit-Choy (Dissertation : Liderazgo Maya-Kaqchikel en Guatemala: del Preconflicto al Postconflicto, 1950-1985) Current Position: Consultant, Ministry of Education, Guatemala
- Matt O'Mansky (Dissertation : The Petexbatun Intersite Settlement Pattern Survey: Shifting Settlement Strategies in the Ancient Maya World) Current Position: Professor of Archaeology, Youngstown State University
- Brent Woodfill (Dissertation : Shrines of the Pasión-Verapaz Region, Guatemala: Ritual and Exchange along an Ancient Trade Route) Current Position: Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Winthrop University
2006
- Carolyn Audet ( Dissertation : Ancient Maya Political Organization: Excavations at Baking Pot, Xunantunich, and Cahal Pech ) Current Position: Assistant Professor of Health Policy, Vanderbilt University
- Hector Leonel Escobedo ( Dissertation : History and Dynastic Politics in a Classic Maya Court: Investigations at Arroyo de Piedra, Guatemala) Current Position: Minister of Culture and Sports, Guatemala
- Brigitte Kovacevich ( Dissertation : Reconstructing Classic Maya Economic Systems: Production and Exchange at Cancuen, Guatemala ) Current Position: Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Central Florida University
2003
- Thomas Kam Manahan ( Dissertation : The Collapse of Complex Society and its Aftermath: A Case Study from the Classic Maya Site of Copan, Honduras) Current Position: Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Kent State University
2002
- Andrew Workinger ( Dissertation : Coastal/highland interaction in prehispanic Oaxaca, Mexico: the perspective from San Francisco de Arriba ) Current Position: Senior Instructor of Anthropology, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga
2001
- Laura Stiver ( Dissertation : Prehispanic Mixtec settlement and state in the Teposcolula Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico) Current Position: Advisor, Data Quality, Metro Nashville Public Schools