Department of Anthropology, Emory UniversityGraduate Program Alumni
Andrea Abrams 2006 (May), Ph.D. Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Who I Am and Whose I Am: Race, Class, Gender and Nation in an Afrocentric Church" Ronald Barrett 2002 (August), Ph.D. Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Aghor Medicine: Pollution, Power, and Healing in Banaras, Northern India" Katharine Barrett 2004 (August), Ph.D. Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Nowhere Else to Go: Cultural Models and Class Conflict in the Juvenile Welfare System" John Bing 2006 (August), Ph.D. Antrhopology , Emory University Dissertation: "The Poison Grows Next to Its Cure: Substance Abuse, Life-History, Ritual, and Self-Transformation on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation " Vicki K. Bentley-Condit
1995 (August), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Infant-Adult Male Relationships as Adult Female Reproductive Strategies in Yellow Baboons (Papio cynocephalus cynocephalus)" Research Interests: Primate behavior, mother-infant relationships, infant development, behavioral sex differences, evolutionary theory Current Activities: Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Grinnell College, Grinnell, IA. I am currently investigating infant development, early behavioral sex differences, and mother-infant relationships among captive olive baboons. I have been working with the captive population at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research in San Antonio, TX for the past five years. This year (2001-2002), I am on sabbatical and spending six months at the Foundation collecting behavioral data. I have long-standing interests in these issues and hope to be able to offer definitive discussions of the "whats, hows, and whys" at the completion of this project. Ryan Brown 2006 (August), Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Resilience, Derailment and Hope During the Transition to Adulthood among Cherokee and Anglo Youth" Margaret Buck 1998 (May), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Female Mate Choice in Sooty Mangabys Social Constraints on Mating Behavior" Svea Closser BA, Religious Studies, Pomona College Dissertation: "Global Development in Policy and Practice: The Polio Eradication Initiative from Atlanta to Rural Pakistan " Svea Closser's research centers on global health interventions in South Asia, and the global political, economic, and cultural environments that affect their shape and trajectory. Her prior research was on Primary Health Care projects in Pakistan, and these projects' relationships with ethnomedical practitioners. Her doctoral research was a multi-sited ethnography of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. It focused on Pakistan, one of the last four countries in the world with endemic polio; Svea conducted fieldwork in Atlanta, Geneva, Islamabad, and in two districts in Pakistan where eradication activities were being carried out. Her dissertation explores the reach, limits, and complex negotiation of the power of UN and bilateral agencies over the Pakistani health system. Andrew Cousin 2000 (August), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Ideology and Biomedicine on the Palestinian West Bank" Mary Crabb 2001 (December), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Socialism, Health and Medicine in Cuba: A Critical Re-Analysis" Joanna Davidson 1992: B.A. Anthropology and Feminist Studies; Stanford
University Dissertation:"Feet in the Fire: Social Reproduction among the Diola of Guinea-Bissau, West Africa " Research interests: social and religious transformation, moral economy, pluralism, personhood. Her research explores the broad themes of cultural values, pluralism, and social transformation. Her dissertation is based on two years of ethnographic fieldwork among the Diola, a group of rice cultivators in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa. My dissertation project connects religious beliefs, funerary ritual, witchcraft, and leveling practices with features of economic and environmental hardship and broader historical trends in the region that influence notions of strangerhood, social exclusion, and collective identity.
Jason DeCaro 2006 (May), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation:"The Proximal Ecology of Stress and Bioecocultural Architecture of Daily Life" Seamus A. Decker 2001 Ph.D. in Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Modernity, affluence and well being: A comparison of stress and social life in a remote-rural and a central-urban community in Botswana" Research interests: Evolutionary psychology, comparative socioecology, cross-cultural psychiatry, psychobiology, life-history and stress, marketing and modern culture, reproductive ecology Current Activities: I have a one-year appointment as professor of anthropology at Yale University. In addition to publishing the results of my dissertation research, I am expanding on my past research about the role of fathers in parenting, child development and lifetime adaptive outcome. I am planning a book prospectus on modernity and stress. Laura Deeb 2003 (December), Ph.D. in Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Diety Among Islamist Shi'I Muslims in Beirut" Alexa Dietrich 2007 (May), Ph.D. in Anthopology, Emory University Dissertation:"The Corporation Next Door: Pharmaceutical Companies in Community, Heatlh and the Environment in Puerto Rico" Jessica Gregg 1999 (August), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Virgins without Hymens and Cancer without Cure: Sexual Strategies and Cervical Cancer in Recife, Brazil" Kendra Hatfield-Timajchy Sugar Hill, Georgia Dissertation:"Delayed Diagnosis: The Experience of Women with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLS) and SLE-like Symptoms in Atlanta, Georgia " Kendra is interested in women's health issues in the United States including "invisible chronic illness" and chronic pain. She is interested in race and ethnicity, health inequalities in the United States, and how psychosocial stress influences the health of women. Her dissertation research was on systematic lupus erythematosus (SLE), an unpreventable and incurable autoimmune disorder that disproportionately affects women. The principle objective of her research is to understand the complex processes that may contribute to delayed diagnosis and how women cope with SLE. The research focuses on the diagnostic odyssey endured by African-American and white women in their struggle to gain legitimation and understanding for their suffering.
M. Cameron Hay 1998 Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University. Dissertation: "Remembering to Live: Coping with Health Concerns on Lombok" Research interests: ethnomedicine, illness experience, organization of knowledge, memory, identity, Indonesia Current activities: My book, a much revised dissertation entitled Remembering to Live: Illness at the Intersection of Anxiety and Knowledge in Rural Indonesia, is being published by the University of Michigan Press and is due out November 2001. Currently I am preparing for an Invited Session at the upcoming AAAs on Illness and Illusions of Control, which features Emory's own Peter Brown and Carol Worthman. While I am still writing up my Indonesia materials into papers and articles, I am also embarking on a new research project to study how patient's access to medical knowledge on the Internet is reshaping doctor-patient relationships in the United States. I hope to begin this project in the spring of 2002 at U.C.L.A.'s Center for Illness and Culture with support from N.S.F. In addition to these scholarly pursuits, I spend much of my time literally pursuing two very inquisitive children, Turner, age 3, and Sydney, age 1. Alex Hinton 1997 (August), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Cambodia's Shadow: An Examination of the Cultural Origins of Genocide" Dan Hruschka 2006 (May), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: " The Diverse Functions of Friendship" Benjamin Junge 2007 (May), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~bjunge/Index.html Dissertation:"Citizenship Appeals: Gender and the Lived Experience of Leftist Politics in Porto Alegre, Brazil" Jun Hu 2000 (August), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation:"Under the Knife: Medical 'Noncompliance' in Hmong Immigrants" Vinay Kamat 2004 (May), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Negotiating Illness and Misfortune in Post-Socialist Tanzania" Nicholas Kottak 2002 (May), Ph.D,, Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: Stealing the Neighbor's Chicken: Social Control in Northern Mozambique." Examined three fields of social control-political systems (traditional and state-level), sorcery practices and ideology, and reputational systems among rural Makua communities in Nampula Province, Mozambique. Research Interests: His theoretical expertise is in psychological anthropology. Under Fulbright, National Science Foundation, and Wenner-Gren Fellowships, Nicholas conducted his doctoral fieldwork in Northern Mozambique for over two years (1997-1999) among the Makua--a Bantu-speaking ethnic group. Current Activities: Since receiving his doctorate, Nicholas has focused on using methods and analytic perspectives in cultural anthropology to research consumers and provide corporate brand strategy insights. He has worked on projects for BBDO, Pizza Hut, the New York Jets, Circuit City, Dunkin Donuts, Envirosell, Coca-Cola, Pepperidge Farm, BrightHouse, Crowne Plaza, (R)evolution Studio, Pfizer, Pharmacia, Centocor, V2, J. Walter Thompson, BBH-NY, Brintnall & Nicolini, and Novartis. Nicholas now lives in New York where he has founded a market research and brand strategy consulting firm-Ethnographic Solutions, LLC (http://www.ethnographic-solutions.com) Chris Kuzawa 2001 (December), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Maternal Nutrition, Fetal Growth, and Cardiovascular Risk in Filippino Adolescents" Daniel Lende 2003 (August), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Pattern and Paradox: Adolescent Substance Use and Abuse in Bogota, Columbia" Leandris Liburd 2006 (May), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: " The medical anthropology of type 2 diabetes at the intersection of race, class, and gender" Eric Lindland 2005 (December), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Crossroads of Culture: Religion, Therapy, and Personhood in Northern Malawi"
Sarah Lyon 2005 (May), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Maya Coffee Farmers and the Fair Trade Commodity Chain"
Thomas McDade 1999 (August), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University. Dissertation: "Culture Change, Stress, and Immune Function in Western Samoan Youth" Research Interests: Biocultural perspectives on health and human development; international health; human biology; stress; ecological immunology; breastfeeding; evolutionary medicine; medical anthropology Current Activities: Assistant Professor, Northwestern University; Director, Laboratory for Human Biology Research- Recent research is primarily concerned with the dynamic interrelationships among biology, culture, and individual psychosocial environments, with an emphasis on biocultural research in adaptation, health, and human development. I have applied these interests to the ecology of breastfeeding, stress and immune function, and the developmental ecology of the immune system. Careful consideration of difficult conceptual and methodological issues has been central to much of this work. Additional information is available at http://www.northwestern.edu/anthropology/LHBR/Home.html Keith McNeal 2004 (May), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Ecstasy in Exile: Divinity, Power, and Performance in Two Trinidadian Possession Religions" Wynne Maggi 1998 (August), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Our Women are Free: An Ethnotheory of Kalasha Women's Agency" Research Interests: Gender, Ethnicity, Agency, Feminist Ethnography, Ethnographic Fiction Current Activities: Instructor of Anthropology and Women's Studies, University of Colorado, Boulder I have been teaching anthropology and women's studies at Boulder for the past 4 years. I have a book, Our Women are Free: Gender and Ethnicity in the Hindukush, that should be out this month with University of Michigan Press. I am taking leave of my position at CU at the end of this semester to work full time as a writer and independent scholar. Dan Mains 2007 (May), Ph.D. in Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Desire and opportunity among Urban Youth in Ethiopia" Sarah Mathis 1997, B.S., Principia College Dissertation:"The Politics of Land: a Study of Power and Authority in Rural KwaZulu-Natal " Sarah Mathis completed two years of ethnographic research in a rural community in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, examining continuity and change in the context of substantial national economic and political transformations after the fall of apartheid. The unexpected adoption of neoliberal economic policies by the state, aimed at stabilizing the economy and preventing capital flight, has slowed the process of redress for the inequalities of wealth and land created during the apartheid period. This has left many impoverished South Africans feeling alienated by national processes of development and progress. Rural communities have been faced with high levels of unemployment and poverty, leading to a strong sense of disillusionment due to the lack of material improvement in their lives over the last decade. In addition, intense political negotiations around the role of customary law and traditional leaders in rural areas have created uncertainty regarding the future shape of political governance. Her dissertation illustrates how land and culture have become central issues in negotiations over the shape of local institutions of governance and social relations of power within communities and households in rural areas.
Melissa Melby 2007 (May), Ph.D. in Anthropology, Emory Universitry Dissertation: "Biocultural Approaches to the Study of the Local Biology of Menopause in Japan" Matsheliso Palesa Molapo 2001 (August), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University. Dissertation: "A Biosocial Study of High Blood Pressure Among Underground Mineworkers in one South African Gold Mine" Research Interests: Occupational health and safety in the mines, HIV/AIDS and other chronic diseases, and social uplift in poverty stricken and previously disadvantaged communities in South Africa. Current position: I'm the Research Area Manager of HIV/AIDS Research and Intervention Programme in the Division of Mining Technology (Miningtek), the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). Our division services the mining industry (locally and internationally), universities as well as the South African government. Our HIV/AIDS team is multidisciplinary, and collaborates with local universities. We are concluding an HIV/AIDS study in Carlentonville (the biggest gold mining town in South Africa). We are currently doing the last evaluation survey to determine the effectiveness of the intervention programme. At the same time our team is managing the Powerbelt HIV/AIDS Project in the coal producing area in the Mpumalanga Province. This project is a collaborative initiative established by the coal mining industry and labour organizations to fight HIV/AIDS and to set up sustainable social upliftment efforts in the mines and surrounding communities. Besides HIV/AIDS work I'm involved in other occupational health and safety research and other social problems affecting productivity in the mines. The project that I'm personally involved in is the study on the Impact of Migrancy and Disease in the SADC Region. With the advent of HIV/AIDS and its opportunistic nature, occupational diseases have incredibly increased among migrant miners in southern Africa. Through this research a model will be developed that can enhance the control of these diseases on both ends of the migrancy spectrum (South Africa and labour sending areas). Donna Murdock 2003 (August), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "When Women Have Wings: Feminist NGO Strategies and Social Class in Medellin, Columbia" Hal Odden B.A., Anthropology, University of California
, San Diego , 1996 Dissertation: "The Acquisition of Cultural Knowledge of Hierarchy by Samoan Youth " Hal is interested in questions relating to the intersections of culture, cognition and child development. For my dissertation research he examined the processes of socialization and cultural learning at work as children (4-12 years of age) come to acquire the body of knowledge and practices relating to hierarchy, rank and respectful behavior in the Western Polynesian society of Samoa . His doctoral research had three central foci: what do children know about hierarchy and respectful behavior at different ages? How do children in this context learn about hierarchy, and how do social and cultural processes organize these patterns of social learning? Finally, what is the effect of this culturally-specific pattern of social learning on: (i) individual conceptual development; and (ii) the differential distribution of knowledge across the population? In future research, he is interested in refining a definition of children’s well being to encompass health outcomes, psychosocial adjustment, and social and cultural competence for specific contexts. Hal Odden is fascinated by the ways in which biological, psychological and sociocultural processes interact at the level of the individual to generate diversity in developmental trajectories and outcomes. He plans on examining psychosocial adaptation in children and early adolescents in the Samoa context, and the ways in which cultural belief and practice shape risk and protective processes for psychosocial stress. He also intends to study the socialization to use observational and imitative learning in young Samoan children.
Mark Padilla 2003 (December), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Looking for Life: Male Sex Work, HIV/AIDS, and the Political Economy of Gay Sex Tourism in the Dominican Republic"
Faidra Papavasiliou 1998, B.A. Anthropology, University of Texas at San Antonio Dissertation: " The Political Economy of Local Currency: Alternative Money, Alternative Development and Collective Action in an Age of Globalization ." What is alternative about "alternatives to development?" Faidra's work in anthropology started with looking at the articulation of the global and the local, as small-scale producers confronted and adapted to a climate of neoliberal development. In her doctoral work she focuses on the emergence of alternative visions of development and particularly the complementary currency movement that seeks to bring about change through the money system. Her main case study is in Ithaca, N.Y., the site of one of the oldest and largest local currency systems in operation today. Faidra asked how local currency operates, what are its implications in the economy, social relations and ecological practice for the area, and what is the effect of using money as a tool for alternative development.
Jennifer Phillips-Davids 1999 (August), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "New Lives: Migration, Fertility Transition, and Life Course Change Among Ethiopian Jewish Immigrants in Israel" Holly Maluk Plastaras 2005 (May), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Cross-Race Friendships and Segregated Peer Groups Among Teens: An Educational Anthropology Study of Race Relations in Two 'Integreated' U.S. High Schools " Gayatri Reddy 2000 (August), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "With Respect to Sex: Charting Hijra Identity in Hyderabad, India" James Rilling
Dissertation: "Comparative Regional Neuroanatomy of Higher Primates Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Insights into Human and Non-Human Primate Brain Evolution" Research interests: neural basis of social cognition, comparative neuroanatomy, primate brain evolution, evolutionary theory Current activities: Assistant Professor, Anthropology Department, Emory University I am using brain imaging technology (functional MRI and Positron Emission Tomography) to explore the neural basis of human social behavior and cognition, with a particular emphasis on aspects of behavior that have historically been under strong evolutionary selective pressure. More specifically, we have conducted an fMRI study of human subjects as they play an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma Game to identify the neural correlates of cooperative and non-cooperative social behavior, and we have conducted a PET study that examined the neural correlates of aggression aroused by sexual competition in male rhesus monkeys. As part of my training at Princeton University, I am involved in a study that is attempting to define the brain regions that mediate the placebo effect. Elaine Salo 2004 (December), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Respectable Mothers, Tough Men and Good Daughters: Producing Persons in Manenberg Township, South Africa" Theodore G. Schurr 1998 (August), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Population Genetic Analysis of Indigenous Peoples of Northeast Siberia: Prehistoric and Historic Influences on Genetic Diversity" Research Interests: Molecular anthropology, human biodiversity, peopling of the Americas, genetic prehistory of Siberia and Asia Current Activities: Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, and Consulting Curator, Physical Anthropology Section, University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. Rebecca Seligman 2004 (August), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Sometimes Affliction is a Door: A Bio-Psycho-Cultural Analysis of the Pathways to Candomblé Mediumship" Sally Bernardina Seraphin 2004 (May), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "The Neuroendocrinology, Neuroanatomy, and Behavior-Pharmacology of Dopamine in Juvenile Nursery-Reared and Mother-Reared Rhesus Monkeys (Macaca Mulatta)" Research interests: Behavioral neuroscience, neuroethology, and developmental neurobiology of primates; blood and brain adaptations for social affiliation, agonism, and reproduction; molecular anthropology of hormone and neurochemical receptors; neuroanthropology of human psychiatric disorders Current Activities: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Laboratory of Molecular and Developmental Neurobiology, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School Daniel Jordan Smith 1999 (May), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Having People: Fertility, Family and Modernity in Igbo-Speaking Southeastern Nigeria" Research Interests: medical anthropology, sub-Saharan Africa, anthropology and population, anthropology and development; kinship and family Current Activities: Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Population Studies, Brown University One current research project examines the relationship between rural-urban migration, kinship networks and reproductive behavior among Igbo people in Nigeria, focusing specifically on migrants who have settled in the northern Nigerian city of Kano. A second project investigates how processes of adjustment to urban life among adolescent and unmarried young adult migrants affect sexual behavior and HIV/AIDS risk. Ronda Stavisky 1994 (May), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Socioendrocrinology: Non Invasive Techniques for Monitoring Reproductive Function in Captive and Free-Ranging Primates" Diana Smay Toebbe 2005 (May), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Measurement of Inclusion Biases in Archaeological Skeletal Collections: A Case Study of Hasanlu" Amanda Thompson 2007 (August), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "More than Just Birth Weight: a Longitudinal Study of the Reproductive Ecology of Infant Growth and Development" Bethany Turner 2008 (May), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: " The Servants of Machu Picchu: Life Histories and Population Dynamics in Late Horizon Peru " Research Interests: Bioarchaeology, Nutritional Anthropology, Political Economy Bethany Turner is interested in the what, why and how of human dietary choices within contexts of ecological constraints, social stratification and differential resource access, and consequent health outcomes. She is also interested in patterns of migration and subsistence in prehistory, particularly in the Western Hemisphere. Her dissertation research centered on reconstructing longitudinal dietary and migratory trends among the nonelite cemetery population from Machu Picchu, Peru and more accurately profiling the social classes present. To do this, she utilized osteological and stable isotope analyses of multiple skeletal tissues from human and faunal remains and modern Peruvian plant samples. More generally and as regards her teaching, she is interested in paleodiet, the political economy of food in history, bioarchaeology, biological anthropology and nutritional anthropology. Holly Wardlow 2000 (August), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Passenger Women: Gender and Agency in a Papua New Guinea Modernity" Eric Wargo 2000 (August), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "Towards a Cultural Iconology: Meaning in Art and Anthropology" Elizabeth Dixon Whitaker 1995 (August), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "The Medicalization of Maternity in Italy:
Fascism and Breastfeeding in an Apennine Community" Current Activities: Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, American University. For further information regarding research interests, publications, and course syllabi, please visit the AU faculty page at http://www.american.edu/cas/anthro/2profs.htm.
Sarah Willen 2006 (May), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation:"'No Person Is Illegal'? Configurations and Experiences of 'Illegality' Among Undocumented West African and Filipino Migrant Workers in Tel Aviv, Israel" John Wood 1997 (May), Ph.D., Anthropology, Emory University Dissertation: "When Men Are Women: Opposition and Ambivalence Among Gabra Nomads of East Africa" Research interests: Gender, Africa, Structuralism, Place, Identity On-going work on change, identity, and modernity in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia. Also: Beginning a project looking into changing ideas about and relations with land and place in southern Appalachia Current Activities: Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Asheville, a small public liberal arts institution; Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Germany
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