Anthropology

Jennifer Ashley

Nicholas Carter

James Doyle

James is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate from Memphis, TN. He has an M.A. in anthropology from Brown University and a B.A. in anthropology from Vanderbilt University. His research focuses on the archaeology of Mesoamerica, specifically monumental architecture during the Preclassic Maya period (ca. 1000 B.C.E. - 250 C.E.). He is currently conducting dissertation fieldwork at the Preclassic site of El Palmar, Petén, Guatemala as part of the Proyecto Arqueológico El Zotz under the direction of Prof. Stephen Houston. His research is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Wenner-Gren Foundation.

Susan Ellison

Susan Ellison is a fourth year doctoral candidate in anthropology, originally from Louisville, Kentucky. She has a B.A. in anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis and a Masters in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. Susan is currently conducting ethnographic fieldwork toward her dissertation in El Alto, Bolivia. Prior to graduate school, Susan lived and worked in Bolivia for four years (2001-2005). Susan's MA thesis examined the proliferation of foreign-funded democracy promotion programs in Bolivia following a 2003 uprising led by indigenous and urban poor Bolivians in the city of El Alto. Her dissertation research builds on that earlier project by examining the politics of conflict resolution programs and efforts to improve "access to justice" for ordinary Bolivians. Her research is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, Social Science Research Council, Wenner-Gren Foundation and the Jacob K. Javits Foundation

Kendra Fehrer

Kendra Fehrer is a fifth year Ph.D. candidate from Palo Alto, California.  She has a BA in International Development from Clark University, an MA in International Development also from Clark University, and an MA in Anthropology from Brown University.   She is also a Fellow in the Graduate Program in Development, sponsored by the Watson Institute for International Studies.  Her primary research interests include an anthropology of development, public policies, and the state in Latin America.  Kendra’s dissertation explores how participation in public (social development) programs in Venezuela is constituted by and constituting urban life.  Her research is supported by grants from the Social Science Research Council, the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and Fulbright-Hays.

Josh MacLeod

Josh MacLeod is a third year student in the anthropology doctoral program. His dissertation research is focused on the political ecology of natural resource use, historical memory, and social movements in the Ixil region of highland Guatemala. His MA thesis is titled: "¡No a la minería!" Gold Mining and Indigenous Citizenship in Post-Conflict Guatemala.

Andrea Maldonado      

Andrea Maldonado graduated from Colgate University with a B.A. degree in anthropology-sociology and Native American studies. In 2006, she conducted ethnographic research in Mexico City for her master's thesis, a study that explores the ways in which middle and upper-middle class Mexicans negotiate their identities, spaces, and communities through social-recreational clubs. In 2007, she studied in Mexico City at the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social as well as at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa (UAM-I). Currently, she is a Visiting Scholar at UAM-I and is conducting 24 months of dissertation fieldwork in Mexico City. Her research investigates the intersections of culture and health in urban Mexico by examining the seemingly paradoxical rise of state-subsidized cultural medicine in an era when privatization of health care is the trend. Since 2002, an assortment of so-called cultural therapies (from yoga to tai chi) has come to displace biomedicine as Mexico’s prescription of choice to prevent and treat what health officials identify as “culturally transmitted diseases” (such as diabetes) among the urban poor. Analyzing state-level policy in tandem with citizens’ interactions seeks to advance a growing literature in medical anthropology on state-promoted extra-medical care, and to offer insights into the effects of these new health practices for both anthropology and policy more broadly.

Kathleen Millar

Sarah Newman

Sarah Newman is a second-year graduate student in Anthropology from Reno, Nevada.  She has a B.A. in Archaeological Studies from Yale University.  She focuses on the ancient Maya and is conducting research as a member of Brown University's Proyecto Arqueológico El Zotz, at the archaeological site of El Zotz in the Petén region of Guatemala.  Sarah is currently studying a collection of ceramic vessels recovered from an intact royal tomb discovered at the site in 2010, as well as the zooarchaeological materials recovered by the project.

Coleman Nye

Kristin Skrabut

Caitlin Walker