Graduate Students
ISABELLA ALEXANDER
isabella.alexander@emory.edu
BA, Anthropology | New York University
MFA, Film |
Speos Institut de la Photographie
MA, Social Sciences | University of Chicago
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My doctoral research examines the socioeconomic effects of evolving migration patterns in North Africa. I look at how a marked growth in sub-Saharan populations is reshaping Morocco’s postcolonial structures of social stratification and reorienting local economies seeking to profit from migrant labor. Many of my questions focus on constructions of political and racial identity, examining how language, education, employment and religious affiliation affirm distinctions between two populations ascribed to one race. More specifically, I ask what role Islam plays in conjugating forms of racial identification. By considering the Moroccan state’s production of citizenship and 'illegality,' my research strives to denaturalize notions that migratory movement should be equated with transgressing a stable law. Rather, I continue to explore the economic desire for exploitable labor and the political interventions by which state regulations have been tweaked to effectively produce an increasing population of 'illegal' persons in the Maghreb, as in the United States.
Research Interests: migration, transnational subjectivities, labor, political economy, racialization, citizenship, postcolonial Africa, borders, Maghrebi history, ethnographic film
KATHRYN BOUSKILL
kbouski@emory.edu
BA, Anthropology | University of Notre Dame
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Influenced by biocultural and medical anthropology, my interests rest in the interplay between sociocultural perceptions and treatments of disease and subsequent impacts on physiological processes. Specifically, I am examining the emotional and physical effects resulting from socioculturally-mediated coping mechanisms of breast cancer patients. Through multi-sited ethnographic and research approaches, I hope to further explore the sociocultural and physiological embodiment of illness.
AMBER CAMPBELL HIBBS
amber.campbell@emory.edu
BS, Anthropology | Kansas State University
MA, Anthropology | Emory University
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My interests focus on the impact of ecological, socio-cultural, and political-economic processes on health and well being in both archaeological and modern populations. My research created a community level epidemiologic profile of schistosomiasis, a water borne parasitic infection, in the populations of Wadi Halfa and Kulubnarti.
My dissertation examines the influence of saqia irrigation on the transmission of schistosomiasis infection within a model of cultural buffering systems. My long term research goals are to develop contextualized models of the influence of human interaction with the environment on health and illness.
BRYCE CARLSON
bacarls@emory.edu
BS, Biology | University of Michigan
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There is no more intimate relationship between an organism and it's environment than through diet. The body is literally built from the nutrients supplied by fruits, nuts, leaves, animal source foods, and other resources. My research investigates how various nutrients, whole foods, or classes of food types may have influenced (and continue to influence) the evolution of our species. Regarding the consumption of animal source foods, for example, I'm asking: (a) was hominin exploitation of animal resources a key factor in the expansion of brain size, tool making, sociality, or other; (b) did the consumption of flesh begin as an valuable component of an otherwise nutrient poor niche, or as a social or culturally laden item within an otherwise rich diet; (c) what was the nutritional significance of animal source foods to the foraging niche; (d) how might that significance have differed by environment or climate? To appreciate the significance of any one component of the diet to a lineage through evolutionary time, we must first prove capable of quantifying it's energetic or volumetric contribution to the individual's diet.
My dissertation seeks to quantify the consumption of individual food items within modern chimpanzees, through isotopic analyses of the tissues left behind after death (hair, bone, and teeth). With analyses of these tissues and the dietary components from which they were built, we may prove capable of tracing the consumption of individual dietary items back through the fossil record to the origin of our species and beyond.
MOYUKH CHATTERJEE
mchatt2@emory.edu
BA, English Literature | St. Stephen’s College - Delhi, India
MA, Sociology | Delhi School of Economics
M.Phil, Sociology | Delhi School of Economics
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My major interest is in the anthropology of collective violence and more broadly concept formation around theories of violence in Western philosophy by exploring relations between representation, subjectivity, productivity and ethics via anthropological modes of knowing the ‘afterlife’ of the Gujarat pogrom in 2002, India. Related to this project is an effort to build new epistemologies of visibility, invisibility, potentiality and sociality in the face of political violence.
HOWARD CHIOU
hchiou@emory.edu
MS, Anthropological Sciences | Stanford University
BA, Human Biology | Stanford University
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As a graduate student in the MD-PhD program in anthropology at the Emory University School of Medicine, my interests center at the intersection between medicine, evolutionary biology, and culture.
My current dissertation work examines acute sleep disruption among hospitalized patients, and the relationships between culture and clinical outcomes. As sleep is a critical component of the sick role in the United States, how do we explain this apparent paradox? How do hospital structures and cultures interface with evolutionarily conserved pathways between sleep and inflammation? How can we translate these evolutionary and cultural perspectives towards improving the quality of medical care? By applying a biocultural approach in medical anthropology, this research seeks to inform not only future policy, but evolutionary and anthropological perspectives on the relationship between sleep and healing in its sociocultural context.
I also volunteer my time towards social and cross-cultural medicine, and specifically the design and implementation of a novel program to train undergraduates as volunteer medical interpreters at free clinics in Atlanta ("Emory University Volunteer Medical Interpretation Services"). I am also passionate about the education and teaching of both university and medical undergraduates, and specifically interested in the application of experiential design and learning technologies in the classroom. Most recently, I have been involved in a collaborative project revitalizing the pedagogical development of graduate student instructors.
AMY COBDEN
acobden@emory.edu
BA, Neuroscience | Oberlin College
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My research examines the relationship between seasonal fruit expression, abundance and diversity in bonobo sociality. I aim to overlay this relationship (assuming there is one) with shifts in energetic stress hormones, collected and preserved in feces and urine. I am interested in what basic environmental factors play a role in decision making when bonobos must make choices regarding social composition.
I am more broadly interested in how scientific narratives, such as the aforementioned influence other dialogues concerning topics, such as gender, social inequality and cultural perceptions of what is "natural". I am not as interested in whether humans are more closely related to chimpanzees or bonobos, as much as I am in how and why we are compelled to debate the subject in the first place.
I am currently working in cooperation with African Wildlife Foundation, in Lomako Forest, Democratic Republic of Congo at the Iyema study site. I regularly update a flickr photostream of the study community, as well as other aspects of life in the forest, where I keep many photos open to the public. http://www.flickr.com/photos/12654221@N00
DANIEL COPPETO
dcoppet@emory.edu
BA, Anthropology and Psycology| New York University
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Primate behavioral and neurological evolution is my primary interest.
I want to understand the underlying structure of the primate brain, its influence on behavior, and the selective pressures that shaped these structures and behaviors.
In particular, I will focus on those features that make the primate brain unique among mammals. Currently my interest lies in understanding how the cerebellum is connected to, and operates in conjunction with, the cerebral cortex. This interest is focused on how the hominoid, and specifically the hominin, brain has altered this subcortical-cortical relationship through novel cognitive and motor demands.
I am researching these questions on multiple levels. First, I am using neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in order to understand the large-scale function and connectivity of the cerebellum in relation to the cerebrum. Second, I am using histological techniques to examine how these macro-scale features are manifested at the cellular level. Finally, psychological models of cerebellar contributions to primate behavior guide this research.
Therefore, my work has a strong interdisciplinary approach as I seek to integrate neural science techniques with psychological theories, while remaining within the evolutionary framework of anthropology.
SARAH DAVIS
shdavis@emory.edu
BA | Harvard University
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My focus is on the cultural militant movement that has been waged over the last 35 years on the French island of Corsica. This movement, know as the riacquistu, is intimately linked with the anti-French nationalist movement on the island. I will examine the ways in which notions of “true” Corsican identity, the “true Corsican tradition,” central tenants of the riacquistu, have been differentially experienced and interpreted by the Corsican population. One of my central questions will be: is the riacquistu a “re-appropriation of true Corsican cultural identity” as it claims—a return to extreme local modes of production, manners of singing, religious affiliations? Or, is it (somewhat ironically) an ideological construction which invites all of Corsican society, a society traditionally fragmented by powerfully local notions of family honor and moral duty, to federalize, to step beyond traditional fragmentation in the name of “civic-duty”?
MATTHEW DUDGEON
BA | Vanderbilt University
MA, Anthropology | Emory University
MPH | Emory University, Epidemiology
matthewdudgeon@gmail.com
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My broad interests are in gender and health, focusing on masculinity and the anthropology of reproduction. I conducted 28 months of field research in two K'iche' Mayan communities in Guatemala, examining men's influences on maternal and infant health, as well as men's reproductive health problems. I compared two communities so that I could see different impacts of Guatemala's civil war on demography and reproduction.
I have also earned an MPH at Emory, and my master's research examined associations between socioeconomic indicators and women's dental health care utilization during pregnancy.
Following fieldwork I began medical school at Emory and have just completed my third year. I plan to appy for residency in obstetrics and gynecology or internal medicine.
SEBASTIAN DUEÑAS
sdueas@emory.edu
BA | Universidad Catolica de Chile
MA | Universidad de Chile
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I am a third year student, currently applying for dissertation grants. My dissertation project looks at the effect of poverty and uncertainty in the development of future orientation in children and adolescents. The setting is rural Mapuche communities in Chile. My broader interest is in Psychological Anthropology, with an emphasis on children’s development in culturally diverse settings, and cognitive anthropology. Lately I have become interested in how culture contributes to self-efficacy beliefs and career choices.
MATTHEW DUVAL
matthew.duval@emory.edu
BA, Sociology and Anthropology | West Virginia University
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Broadly, my long-term career goal is to contribute to the identification and study of those brain characteristics that represent adaptive responses to the environmental selection pressures of our evolutionary past. Nested under this general research interest is the more focused objective of advancing our knowledge of brain structures and cognitive processes that organize and guide the performance of complex visuomotor tasks. This interest involves developing research methods that utilize eye-tracking and neuroimaging instruments to help characterize the adaptive specializations that facilitated the human ability to make and use stone tools.
WHITNEY EASTON
weaston@emory.edu
BA, Anthropology and Classical Civilizations| Emory University _______________________________
I am interested in the local, national, and global implications of intersecting migration and localism trends in Southern Europe. I hope to explore some of the complex questions posed by the unique convergence of migrants, residents, foodways, capital, entrepreneurship, citizenship, and the Italian state . I am especially intrigued by recent legislation banning the construction of ethnic food establishments in Lucca, Italy and elsewhere in Northern Italy. The Lucchese food ban leaves one wondering: What is the perceived threat, and what is being defended? What are the boundaries between cultural preservation and xenophobia, nationalism and racism, protectionism and paranoia, and how best to problematize these notions in the context of the current South European immigration climate? I wonder whether the food legislation is indicative of broader trends toward ethnic polarization and if certain ethnic groups face particular exclusionary measures. I want to explore how the Lucca food legislation affects the role of food in initiating and maintaining social boundaries, and how legislation of this type aligns with the broader political terrain in Italy and the European Union.
Food constructs bonds of belonging and helps forge individual and collective identity, but it also brings to the surface issues of power and control. The establishment of the European Union and its free flow of people, capital, and goods has, in many cases, led to a revival of nationalist and localist movements – and sometimes seemingly xenophobic projects against ethnic minorities. In what ways is this European transnational arena reshaping notions of citizenship and identity, and what particular forms do these transformations assume in the Mediterranean periphery of Europe?
It is through this lens that I hope to critically examine food nationalism and immigration in Italy and how global flows may prompt antiglobal surges.
EMILY ESCHE
emily.esche@emory.edu
BS, Archaeology | University College London
MS | Skeletal and Dental Bioarchaeology | University College London
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Broadly my main academic interests revolve around fetal programming and predictive health. I am studying how early developmental environments in utero can affect one’s health as an adult, for example propensity for hypertension or obesity. Within this larger field I am specifically working on early placental development and how maternal behavior (diet, smoking, drinking) and environment (the immune system) can affect the normal process of growth and functioning. I also want to look at what long-term effects maternal behavior can have for later child and adult health outcomes, if placental development is disrupted. I am interested in assessing these interactions through clinical and laboratory studies.
This is my first time studying in the US, I am originally from Cambridge, UK and studied in London for 4 years. It is also my first time really studying the living as my background is in ancient cultures and skeletal remains, ie archaeology and bioarchaeology.
On the non-academic side of things I enjoy cycling, walking, photography and drinking wine.
TRICIA FOGARTY
pfogart@learnlink.emory.edu
MA, Anthropology | Georgia State University
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I am focusing on the production and reproduction of social identity—particularly national and ethnic identities, through language use in the Republic of Moldova (formerly part of the Soviet Union ). Some factors influencing this topic are the intersections of official and unofficial discourses produced through national policies and influential community/national leaders as well as through everyday language use and people's beliefs about language use.
These topics came together during 15 months of fieldwork, between Sept. '06-Dec. '07, funded by a Fulbright-Hays dissertation research grant. Now I am beginning the process of writing my dissertation with the working title of "Building Moldova". The different discourses I hope to bring together in my writing concern development, corruption, ethnicity, kinship and other social “connections”—basically, what influences people's formation of social and national identities in the multiethnic and post-socialist context of Moldova.
TYRALYNN FRAZIER
tfrazi2@gmail.com
BS, Biochemistry | Michigan State University
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Through the lens of cultural consensus modeling, my work aims first, to understand how the conceptualization of pregnancy behaviors differs by race, and second to understand how consensus with models of behavior relate to stress among a population-based sample of women in the state of Georgia (USA). Race is a frequently used, but under-theorized category. Using domain analysis methods and cultural consensus modeling, my work aims to put race as an assumed cultural grouping into question in the context of pregnancy behaviors.
BONNIE FULLARD
bfullar@emory.edu
BA, Anthropology & Psychology | University of Notre Dame, 2008
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I worked in coastal Kenya for two summers while an undergrad at Notre Dame and plan to expand the research I began into a dissertation project. I am interested in the reasons for differential capacity to benefit from treatment interventions. In particular, I want to know what causes 'breakdowns' in the provision of treatment--whether it is healthcare-seeking behavior, uptake, adherence, or biological response.
Clearly there are issues of access, perception, and power at play at various points in this process. My project has looked at reasons for initially low uptake of ARVs (anti-retrovirals, drugs for HIV) in Kenya. I would like to begin looking at not only the reasons provided by people with HIV and their healthcare providers but also to examine the reasons provided by the Ministry of Health and large-scale NGOs. In this way, I hope to understand whether policy-makers and those with HIV are attributing low treatment uptake to the same factors or whether there is a disconnect between those who require treatment and those charged with distributing it.
SWARGAJYOTI GOHAIN
sgohain@emory.edu
BA | University of Delhi, India
MA, M.Phil | Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi
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I am concerned in dealing with the narratives of identity and modernity in relation to ethnic communities in the border regions of Northeast India. There have not been adequate studies on the subjectivities of the local populations of this region, and how these may have been shaped by the peculiar conditions of living created by historical exigencies, colonial conditions and their counter practices, and postcolonial regimes. I would also like to explore how development policies, displacement of populations, and ethnic strife may have shaped the region’s politics, and given rise to varied expressions of identity.
AUBREY GRAHAM
aubrey.graham@emory.edu
BA, Anthropology and French | Colgate University
MA, Social Anthropology and Development | School of Oriental and African Studies
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My interests reside at the intersection of photojournalism and anthropology. Having worked and studied in both fields in the past, I am excited to pursue a doctorate where I can combine my passions through an anthropological lens. My research addresses questions of power, representation and mass media influence. More specifically, my research focuses on the creation and impact of still images in humanitarian emergencies in Central Africa.
My current research addresses the essentialized 'victim' images of women whohave experienced sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo's eastern provinces. I am interested in unraveling the nexus of power, expectation, need and access surrounding the 'field' interactions between humanitarians, journalists and the local population, where images are created and there exists a real potential for visual decontextualization. Following these images from inception to mass-dissemination, my hopes are to better understand the influence and impact of these images within programs of humanitarian aid. Through this research, I hope to continue my own production of still images that remain close to the context of the lives of individuals involved in the humanitarian emergencies, thereby challenging visual trends through both photographic and written works.
DINAH HANNAFORD
dhannaf@emory.edu
BA | Duke University
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My research focuses on Senegalese transnational migration to Italy. I
look at issues of gender identity, transnational marriage, xenophobia
and generational change. I am also interested formal sex work and
informal transactional sex, global youth culture, Sufi Islam and
alternate modernities.
Research Interests: transnational migration, gender, power, marriage
and kinship, modernity, subjectivity; Europe; West Africa.
CLAIRE MARIE HEFNER
chefner@emory.edu
BA, Anthropology | University of Wisconsin, Madison
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My long-term research interests lie in the anthropological study of gender and sexuality, modernity, education, and Islam, as viewed from the perspective of the largest Muslim-majority country in the world, Indonesia. My work is based in pesantren, or Muslim boarding schools. Thanks to the generous support of the Wenner-Gren Foundation, I am currently in Yogyakarta where I am conducting research for my dissertation project entitled Shaping Muslim Subjectivities: Gender, Piety, and Modernity in Indonesian Islamic Boarding Schools. The question of how to balance a modern, educated life-style with the demands of Islamic piety and femininity is the subject of great debate in Indonesia. One arena where this topic is particularly salient is in Islamic schooling for girls. My research will explore gender socialization and educational achievement in two Islamic boarding schools for girls in Yogyakarta, Indonesia (Madrasah Mu'allimat run by Muhammadiyah and Pesantren Krapyak run by Nahdlatul Ulama). Although the socialization of appropriate ideals and practices of Muslim femininity lies at the heart of Islamic education for girls, both formal and informal, education is today being transformed as a result of far-reaching changes in Indonesian public culture, generally, and Islamic public life more specifically.
SUMA IKEUCHI
sikeuch@emory.edu
BA, History and Anthropology | Hokkaido University
MA, Anthropology | Brandeis University
Master of International Communication and Media Studies | Hokkaido University
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I am a second-year doctoral student who is interested in the intersection of religion, resilience and transnational migration. More specifically, I am hoping to work with Brazilian Pentecostal church communities in Japan to better understand the relationships between religious resources, reformation of identities, and promotion of positive mental health among transnational migrant groups. The majority of church members are Nikkei migrants and their families. They are Brazilians of Japanese descent who have migrated to Japan in the past 30 years and have been building their lives in both Brazil and Japan.
I spent the summer of 2011 at the Portuguese School of Middlebury College,VT. I will conduct pilot research in the summer of 2012 in the Toukai region of Japan and in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
I was born in Himeji, Japan, and have lived in Osaka, Sapporo, Khon Kaen (Thailand), and Boston before settling in Atlanta for my doctoral study. Although I don't travel as much any more, I used to be a passionate back-packer and have traveled extensively in Europe and Asia. I am a part-time potter and enjoy long walks and coffee shops.
Research Keywords: transnational psychiatry, transnational migration, religious healing, mental health, subjectivity, Christianity, Pentecostalism, Brazil and Japan
DREDGE BYUNG' CHU KANG
bkang@emory.edu
BA, Anthropology | University of Maryland MA, Anthropology | Emory University
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My dissertation research focuses on gender pluralism and social status among gay men and male to female transgender persons (kathoey or sao praphet sawng) in Bangkok, Thailand. I am interested in conceptualizations of gender/sexuality categories, the social legitimacy accorded to these categories, the social and moral status of the individuals inhabiting them, and the relationship of social status to material and embodied outcomes. I am concurrently pursuing an MPH in global epidemiology with a focus on HIV.
HILARY KING
hbking@emory.edu
BA, Spanish | Hamilton College
MA, Anthropology of Development and Social Interaction | University of Sussex
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My doctoral research examines how social relationships shape economic interactions around food. Through comparative studies of consumers and producers in the US, Mexico and other Latin American countries, I will explore how social values and relationships are manifested in the consumption of products within ‘ethical’ trade initiatives and in transnational, migrant communities. I examine ethical consumption trends like fair and direct trade, traceability, and local consumption movements. By working with transnational migrants, I explore how communities that maintain relationships through remittances, political participation and social bonds also imbue transnational goods with social values. Through my investigations, I seek to answer questions like: What effect can changes in consumption have on exploitative or unsustainable business practices? How do people conceive of their connections to others through consumption? How can traceability build relationships? Can consumption trends be harnessed to foment positive change? What is the difference between ‘real’ and perceived community? I seek to understand how people connect to one another individually and abstractly in an increasingly globalized world, and how these connections affect our understanding of responsibility as members of a global community.
I am a proud Oregon native, and also love Scrabble, coffee shops, farmer’s markets, cooking, and ultimate Frisbee.
Research interests: economic anthropology, anthropology of food, ‘ethical’ consumption, cooperative movements, international trade, artisan versus commodity production, migration, transnational communities
JEN KUZARA
jkuzara@learnlink.emory.edu
BA, Anthropology and German | University of Nebraska
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My research interests center primarily on the study of infectious disease, which I hope to pursue from both bio-cultural and bio-medical foundations. My interests include the following: social factors, including gender issues, in the spread of HIV; the effects of acculturation, social inequalities, and development and infrastructural issues on parasite and pathogen loads; and cross-cultural and environmental differences in immunological function. Many of these issues are ones I have not been able to explore in much depth, and hope to narrow my focus once I have had the opportunity to do so.
AUN LOR
alor@emory.edu
BS, Biology | Emory University
MPH, International Health | Emory Rollins School of Public Health
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My current research interest is on migrant health workers, more specifically health workers who have migrated from developing countries to work in the US. Global migration of health professionals has become a major public health concern, because it contributes to shortages in developing countries, which can hinder progresses in achieving public health goals, such as reducing infant and child mortality. My goal is to understand the lived experience of migrant health workers, focusing on Indian-born migrant health workers, and how these experiences influenced their decision to migrate, and in some cases return to their country of origin. These experiences are related to issues of identity, social network, assimilation, and citizenship, which are tied to socio-cultural, economics, and political, and global forces that may be beyond their immediate control, but which are significant factors in their decision-making processes. Important questions relating to global economic, health development and globalization will be explored. I am also examining the ethical dilemmas and human rights issues faced by health workers, as well as the ethical and inequality issues surrounding recruitment of foreign health workers by governmental and private agencies in the United States and other industrialized countries.
JENNY MASCARO
jmascar@emory.edu
BA | University of Notre Dame
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Research interests: social cognition, theory of mind
I would like to use functional and structural neuroimaging to explore the neural substrates correlated with social cognitive skills such as empathy and a theory of mind. In looking at both comparative primate neurobiology and at intra- and inter-group variation found in humans, I hope to gain a better understanding of the specific nature of these cognitive features; that is, how we develop and employ them to become successful social beings.
AMANDA MUMMERT
amanda.mummert@emory.edu
BA, Physical Anthropology | University of California, Santa Barbara
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My research interests include bioethics, nutrition, skeletal biology, the interactions between different internal body systems, the history of human health, and cultural mediators of disease processes. These quite diverse curiosities are linked by an underlying interest in the concept of health, what ‘healthy’ actually describes, and how we can create a health care system that operates through a concept of wellness rather than pathology.
Through my dissertation research I plan to address the complex interactions between the skeleton and the immune system, including their genetic and environmental underpinnings, how they simultaneously contribute to growth processes, the degree to which these systems interact throughout the life span, and how each system contributes to or detracts from other disease processes.
My previous experiences range from archaeological fieldwork in Cotahuasi, Peru and the central coast of California to analytic work at a public health research firm on projects providing feedback to physicians on patient adherence to recommended preventive care screenings and research aimed at improving health outcomes.In addition to my work in Anthropology, I am participating in the Predictive Health and Society research pathway as part of the Molecules to Mankind (M2M) doctoral program.
AIMAN MUSTAFA
amusta2@emory.edu
B.Tech., Electrical Engineering | Aligarh Muslim University
Post Graduate Diploma, English Journalism | Indian Institute of Mass Communications
MA, Sociology | Delhi School of Economics
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I have worked briefly as a news reporter and my immediate research interests stem from this experience. I seek to explicate how the stuff of "reality" comes to be what it is in the discursive space of the newspaper. This I do by examining the relationships between different kinds of language press, and their quite differing versions of "reality". Engaging with the now classical and pioneering media studies work of CCCS, I also seek to go beyond it by living among newspersons and examing the process of news production from the ground up. Here I specifically focus on the relationship between the postcolonial nation-state and news producers to delineate how and if the news media are implicated in the role of ideological apparatuses of the state. When i am not working I enjoy biking. I am also a cinema lover, being quite interested in the dynamics of popular cinema.
LAUREN MYERS
lmyers2@learnlink.emory.edu
BS, Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology | Emory University
BS, Anthropology and Human Biology | Emory University
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My interests in anthropology broadly lie in the fields of psychological and medical anthropology, primarily where they intersect concerning physical wellness, mental health, and the psychobiological mediators of disease. My focus in the future will be to research and identify biomedical solutions that are informed by broader cultural experiences and meanings to increase treatment efficacy across socioeconomic and ethnic boundaries.
In particular, I am interested in examining and analyzing the complex relationships between nutrition, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and the global obesity epidemic. By investigating the ways in which modernity has shifted and changed our dietary profiles, I hope to gain insight into the cultural and social factors currently contributing to the increased incidence of obesity and its related chronic diseases in America, as well as globally. My future research will focus on developing and understanding this connection between the cultural aspects and social implications of diet and the marked ethnic health disparities revealed through obesity's epidemiological patterns.
ASHLEY NICOLE PARKS
anparks@emory.edu
BA, Anthropology and Theater| Butler University ________________________________
The human brain is an intriguing and complex entity. The evolution of human cognition has allowed the brain to develop an utter fascination with itself. It is with this exceptional and expensive collection of tissues that I am able to ponder the driving forces behind the selection of complex cognitive functions. My research revolves around the evolution of the brain and its behavioral correlates in primates, and can be concentrated into the following subtopics: comparative neuroanatomy, genetic and epigenetic influences on brain morphology, and cognitive specializations in human and nonhuman primates. I aim to test the link between neuroanatomy and cognitive processing by correlating substructures with specific neurocognitive parameters. In particular, my focus lies on human social cognition and the development of altruistic behaviors. I am interested in using functional neuroimaging techniques, specifically fMRI and DTI, to assess variation in nueroanatomical design and cortical connectivity in human and nonhuman primates from an evolutionary perspective. My research hinges on an integrative approach to scientific inquiry, as it fuses together insight from comparative primate neurobiology, human evolutionary biology, paleoanthropology, cognitive neuroscience, comparative genomics, and developmental neuroscience.
MICHELLE SCHULEIN PARSONS
mschul2@learnlink.emory.edu
BA, Human Biology | Stanford University
MS, Population and International Health | Harvard School of Public Health
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I came to medical anthropology through international development and health. For my masters in public health I focused on quantitative and qualitative research methods. My thesis was on middle-aged women’s use of psychotropics in Beirut . Following my masters, I worked at the World Health Organization in Geneva for two years. I have also lived in Spain, Russia, and Indonesia.
My dissertation will focus on the mortality crisis in Russia following the sociopolitical ‘transition’ during the 1990s. This public health crisis represents the largest drop in life expectancy in modern history, primarily among middle-aged men. I will examine how a cohort of older Russians, those that were at greater risk of increased mortality in the early 1990s, suffered and survived the life-threatening social changes. How did men and women experience those years? How are current expressions of distress mapped onto socioeconomic trajectories and gender? This project brings an anthropological approach to a health crisis that has not been studied through on-the-ground ethnography.
I define myself as a critical interpretive medical anthropologist with an interest in how socioeconomic and political change affects the health of individuals. I am also interested in how the methods of ethnography and epidemiology influence the production of knowledge.
KWAME PHILLIPS
kphill3@emory.edu
BA, Religious Studies and Philosophy | Macalester College
MSc, Transcultural Mental Healthcare | Queen Mary - University of London
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I am a graduate student of Visual Anthropology and Film Studies. I am interested in investigating the recent rise of suicidality among the African-Caribbean community in the UK and how this might be connected to issues of identity and personhood. My intent is to then produce a film from my research to present both a textual and visual analysis of the issues at hand.
MAURITA POOLE
mnpoole@emory.edu
BS, Arabic/Government | Georgetown University
MPH, Global Health | Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University
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Research interests: identity, race/ethnicity, beauty and modernity
My research examines the ways that Egyptian beauty ideals and practices reflect their perceptions of skin color, race, and identity. I am currently writing my dissertation, “Brown Skin is Half the Beauty”: The Intersection of Race, Gender, and Beauty in Contemporary Cairo.
YAYA REN
yren@emory.edu
JD | Vanderbilt University
MA, Social Science | University of Chicago
BA, Social Studies of Science and Medicine | University of Chicago
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I am currently working in the field in California. I currently utilize the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) as a unique social niche for exploring the "courtesy anthropomorphization" of pre-social bodies into "little persons" in a context where medical, socio-cultural, and legal boundaries collide.
JOSH ROBINSON
jrrobi3@emory.edu
BA, Anthropology | University of Florida
BA, Geography | University of Florida
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My big research question is: How did early humans/hominins experience and adapt to climate change? In order to study this question I have developed a number of isotope studies focusing on the late Pleistocene. My goal is to utilize my geographic skills in combining biological, archaeological, and environmental data in an attempt to understand how and why dispersals and shifts in culture occurred at this time (OIS 5-3; roughly 120,000-30,000 years ago) in our evolutionary history. While my previous research has included field work in South Africa and Jordan, I plan to expand my studies into the Americas. A key component of my research is the use of spatial geographic concepts, especially geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing, and air photo interpretation, to gain a more holistic review of the subject. These tools allow for information from the archaeological and biological spheres to be combined in ways that provide finer grained resolution in studying hominid adaptive strategies, and highlight new ways of viewing the paleoanthropological record.
Most recently, I spent part of the summer of 2011 in South Africa studying the faunal collection from the Middle Stone Age site of Sibudu Cave (KwaZulu-Natal) and collecting isotopic data from teeth. I hope to have results from this work soon. I am also involved in a project in Jordan that is studying a critical period in human evolution, the spread of early Homo sapiens out of Africa. This fieldwork involves excavation at a newly discovered cave site in NW Jordan that preserves Upper Paleolithic stratigraphy.
Ultimately, I want to be able to study a series of sites, grouped tightly both temporally and spatially, in order to push our intellectual envelope beyond our (more) common single-site interpretations. By incorporating multiple lines of evidence I plan to show that no one feature is the key forcing factor in an event, but that each of these pieces of data are crucial to understanding the success of our species as it adapted to shifting environmental, geographic, biological, and cultural landscapes during the late Pleistocene.
ANA E. SCHALLER DE LA COVA
aschall@emory.edu
BA, Anthropology and French | Bowdoin College
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Research interests: Modernity and development, education, urbanization, youth, and Islam; Senegal. I have recently returned from having conducted my field research in Senegal and have begun to write up my dissertation .
My research is comparative and involves Koranic boarding schools, Islamic day schools, and national secular schools in Dakar. I examine the ways in which these diverse and historically-contingent modes of education articulate with a restructuring of the meaning of knowledge, economic instability, urban migration, and social change. I am also keenly interested in issues of personhood and identity, youth culture, and local ways of being modern.
GABRIELA SHEETS
gabriela.sheets@emory.edu
BA, Anthropology | Sarah Lawrence College
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My interests consistently revolve around the fields of psychological anthropology, medical anthropology, the biology of gender, as well as theories of wellness and thriving. My applied and professional experiences focused on broadening the healthcare paradigm beyond illness to wellness (specifically utilizing mind-body therapies in the treatment of PTSD).
I plan to study the socio-cultural implications and expression of sexual (primarily neurological and endocrinological) dimorphism.
Through an interdisciplinary, biocultural approach, I intend to study the gender-specific ecological constraints, psychosocial stressors, and healthcare needs and perceptions of a given population in order to optimize or transform current programs. Often my interests sway toward marginalized populations, which in the case of many current NGOs, is the male partner (his healthcare needs, perceptions of fatherhood and partnership). My geographic areas of interest find home in Central America and Cuba.
SUJIT SHRESTHA
sshres4@emory.edu
BS, Anthropology | Colby College
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As a first year student, I am interested in many topics and issues that Cultural Anthropology can engage with. These include modernity and the various translations of development in South Asia; nationhood; tourism; migration; history; media and representation; and human rights. My aim for the first year is to integrate my interests through multidisciplinary frameworks while developing a research agenda that will focus on the South Asian region.
MARK SMITH
mark.smith@emory.edu
BA, Anthropology | The George Washington University
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My research interests within gender and sexuality are rooted in discourse and power (especially within Western psychiatry) and the Internet’s influence on sexual subcultures. Much of anthropological and related gender and sexuality research has focused on the gendered, sexualized subject within society. My research, in contrast, explores asexual (and sometimes “agendered”) identity. Although asexuality has many subcategories, most asexuals agree that asexuality is defined by a lack of sexual attraction to others. I study current trends in asexuality and how the asexual community develops over time. I am focusing on “discovery” and “coming out” narratives, or how individuals found out and told others about asexuality. I also explore social cohesion among asexuals resulting from increased virtual and real life contact and the overlap between online and offline groups. Since not all asexuals participate in offline groups, I must study online groups in their own terms, as a separate entity from the offline. In addition, as a minority “sexuality,” asexuality shares commonalities with other queer LGBT communities, so I also examine interactions between asexual and LGBT individuals. To date, my research and fieldwork has strictly taken place in the United States (San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and online). I plan to extend this research to South Korea or Japan, focusing on similar, though not identical, forms of asexuality.
JED STEVENSON
Jed.Stevenson@gmail.com
BA, Archaeology, Classics, and Classical Art | University College London
MA, Anthropology | Emory University
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I came to Emory with a background in archaeology, and with broad interest in—among other things—the anthropology of education, social change, and political economics in Africa, the Middle East , and the USA.After taking a class in medical anthropology in my second year, I developed new and complementary interests in the social distribution of health and disease (especially malnutrition and infectious disease), and I went on to study Global Health as a fellow in the Center for Health, Culture, and Society.
For my fieldwork, I spent two years in Ethiopia investigating the effects of parents' education on their childcare practices and children's health.There I carried out ethnographic work in local schools, and organized a longitudinal study of infant health and development with help from colleagues at Jimma University’s Faculty of Public Health, and a Brown University project, the Jimma Longitudinal Study of Youth.
In 2011 I will begin a postdoctoral fellowship with the Maternal and Neonatal Health in Ethiopia Partnership, an intervention to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality: http://www.nursing.emory.edu/manhep/index.html
| Article by Jed Stevenson in Fall 2009 Anthropology Department Newsletter |
NICOLE TAYLOR
ndtaylo@emory.edu
BA, Translation | York University
MS, Anthropology | University of Toronto
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TAWNI TIDWELL
ttidwel@emory.edu
BS | Earth Systems, Stanford University
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I work on biocultural conceptualizations and systems of knowledge regarding the human body, health and illness, and their relations and affects within environmental and social systems, particularly drawing from my background in and study of the Tibetan medical system. I use Buddhist psychological and neuroscience underpinnings on roots of and affects on illness, and the procurement and transmission of embodied knowledge. I work both in the clinical applications and public and environmental health perspectives, as well as the theoretical framework for Tibetan medicine. My experience in Peruvian and Bolivian traditional medical systems has also deeply influenced my approach to the myriad of issues in individual-society-environment health narratives.
JENNIFER SWEENEY TOOKES
jlsween@emory.edu
BA | California State University, Northridge
MA | California State University, Northridge
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I am interested in food, identity, transnationalism, gender, health and nutrition. I am currently in the midst of my dissertation research, which focuses on multiple influences on the quantities and types of foods consumed, changes in physical activity, perceptions of health and body ideals, and how body compositions differ as people migrate between Barbados and the United States. I am interested in the ways that people use consumption to signal identity and the contexts in which this signifying takes place, as well as the ways that selective consumption affects health, body size and estimations of attractiveness.
My research addresses popular scholarship on migrant nutrition and acculturation based on language acquisition, and challenges the validity of language acquisition in the prediction of health. Shifting from the current academic focus on non-English speaking migrants from developing, poverty-stricken nations coming to the US, my work explores how understandings of migrant food choice will alter when we focus on relatively economically well-off people from a more developed nation, who are native English-speakers. My work has a combined focus on nutrition and cultural meaning; a juncture which gives insight not only into how diet changes upon migration but the nutritional impact and cultural meaning of that change. I investigate: Do types and quantities of foods consumed, and body compositions differ between sending populations in Barbados and migrants in the Atlanta area? Does this migrant population replicate a shift similar to that seen in other migrants? Or will food choice and body size reflect those seen on the island, indicating that this group retains the food practices that they brought to the US? In what ways do food habits and body composition reflect cultural values on body ideals? How do these factors relate to generation and gender of the study subjects?
I use participant observation, interviewing, and photographic and written food diaries along with measurements of physical condition such as body mass index and waist-hip ratios, to assess differences and similarities in food choice and body composition in Barbadian migrants in Atlanta as well as Barbadians in their home country.
LESLEY JO WEAVER
lweaver@emory.edu
BA | Smith College
MPH | Emory University
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As a medical anthropology student, I am interested in chronic disease and mental health among urban middle- and upper-class women in New Delhi. India currently harbors approximately 40 million people with type 2 diabetes--more than any other country in the world--and projections estimate that this number will double by 2030. Type 2 diabetes management requires major diet and lifestyle changes and complex medication regimes (sometimes including daily injections). It may create problems regulating mood, and nearly always carries a significantly higher risk of amputation, blindness, and neuropathy, reduced physical mobility, and earlier mortality. Elaborate and time-consuming treatment regimes for diabetes may be especially challenging for women in Delhi, who frequently juggle family care responsibilities with emerging employment opportunities and modern desires. Yet, the social processes linking diabetes and compromised mental health remain poorly understood and often unacknolwedged.
My research explores the ways in which diabetes and depression/anxiety are linked through reduced family and social role fulfillment among women living in Delhi. It also explores local conceptions and experiences of mental health problems. Through my work, I hope to draw attention to the significant impact of type 2 diabetes management challenges on a woman's (and her family's) mental health status, social functioning, and quality of life, both in India and elsewhere. In conjunction with my Ph.D. work, I have also completed a Master's degree in Public Health from Emory's Rollins School of Public Health.
ANDRE WELLINGTON
awellin@emory.edu
BSc, Political Science | University of West Indies
MA, African Studies | University of California at Los Angeles
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Andre Wellington is Jamaican and earned his B.Sc. with First Class Honours in Political Science and a minor in Criminology from the University of the West Indies, Mona in Kingston, Jamaica. He is currently pursuing an M.A. in African Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles where his focus is on South Africa. His interest in Africa grew out of his collaborative experiences with the South African High Commission in Jamaica. While his research interests have and continue to evolve, he mainly focuses on issues of crime and conflict in South Africa, and is interested in alternative conceptions and interpretations of violence vis-à-vis the state, vigilantes and criminals. He has visited South Africa on two occasions: the first to deliver a paper entitled "Agricultural Protectionism in South Africa" to the All African Student's Conference at the Universiteit van die Vrystaat in Free State, South Africa in 2006. On his second visit he performed archival research on crime trends during and after Apartheid in South Africa at the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Cape Town and was most pleased to visit and study the infamous town of Hillbrow – crime capital of Johannesburg in 2007. His desire to study Anthropology comes out of an appreciation for the discipline's critical integration of history, social theory and ethnography and its grappling with the concept of agency and social action to unearth new and creative understandings. He also intends to do comparative work on crime and violence in Jamaica and South Africa, and he feels a confluence of supportive people and institutions have brought him thus far and will carry him further still.
SHUNYUAN ZHANG
szhan22@emory.edu
BA, English Language and Literature | Shanghai International Studies University, 1999
MA, English Linguistics | Shanghai International Studies University, 2002
MA, Gender Studies | Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008
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As a second-year student, I am interested in a variety of topics in sociocultural anthropology, including gender and sexuality, globalization, medical anthropology, and linguistic anthropology. Rather than taking them as disparate subfields within anthropology, I tend to treat them as closely interrelated perspectives through which larger social, cultural, political and economic settings and events could be embodied and represented. More importantly, I am interested in how the seemingly “local” aspects like gender practices could actively exert influence upon “global” patterning, constituting an integral part in the on-going process of globalization. My research project is concerned specifically with transgender community in mainland China.
MOLLY ZUCKERMAN
mollykzuckerman@yahoo.com
mzucke2@emory.edu
BA, Anthropology and Women’s Studies | Pennsylvania State University
Graduate Certificate, Women’s Studies | Emory University, 2008
MA Anthropology | Emory University, 2009
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I am a bioarchaeologist and paleopathologist with regional and temporal specialization in early modern England (c. 1500-1850). My current interests are in the biosocial determinants of disease in past human populations, specifically in understanding the interplay of social, demographic, and ecological factors on both the evolution of infectious disease—particularly sexually transmitted infections—and on lived experiences of disease in the past. My long-term research goals are to utilize evolutionary, ecological, and biocultural models of health and disease to examine the causes of health inequalities in the past and to use these results to inform and evaluate public health interventions.
My dissertation employs skeletal, historical, archaeological, and biochemical evidence to examine the interaction of social identity and acquired syphilis in early modern England (c. 1500-1850). Specifically, I am investigating how variation in ecological, physiological, and social factors proximately related to skeletal individuals’ sex, age, socioeconomic status (SES), and ultimately, to larger demographic, ecological, sexual, social, and political shifts, affected experiences of syphilis over time. These include functional impairment (severity and duration of infection and type of tissue destruction), access to therapeutic treatment, and questions of host-parasite co-evolution.
In addition to my dissertation, I am the Co-PI for a study examining the health, diet, and geographic origins of a small group of naturally-mummified remains from the Hetz Mountain cave site of rural southern Mongolia. This is part of a larger study, the Mongolian Mummy Project, which is funded by the National Geographic Society and is a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. I am also the Co-PI of a smaller project which will use trace element analysis—via handheld X-ray florescence (X-rf)—to investigate levels of exposure to environmental and industrial contaminants in English populations during the English Industrial Revolution (c. 1750-1870).
My general interests include the evolution, ecology, and epidemiology of infectious disease, syphilis and other sexually transmitted infections, skeletal biology, trace element analyses, human evolution, evolutionary medicine, human anatomy, anthropological demography, gender studies, feminist anthropology, English and European social history, and the political economy of health and disease throughout history.