Category: Alumni

Congratulations to our Student Award Winners

Awards Blog Post Photo
Photo left to right, top to bottom: Isabel Slingerland, Claire Biffl, Emma Hanlon, Evan Amaral, Rebecca Rusnak, Sara Kauko, Shreyas Sreenath.

The Anthropology Department is pleased to announce our 2020 student award winners!  Please join us in congratulating undergraduates Isabel Slingerland, Claire Biffl, Emma Hanlon, Evan Amaral and Rebecca Rusnak, and graduate students Sara Kauko and Shreyas Sreenath.  Undergraduate awards were conferred at a virtual celebration on Friday, April 24.  See below for detailed award descriptions.  We are so proud of our many impressive students!

2020 Undergraduate Student Awards

Outstanding Senior Award: Isabel Slingerland

Outstanding Junior Award: Evan Amaral and Rebecca Rusnak

Marjorie Shostak Prize for Excellent and Humanity in Ethnographic Writing:

  • Claire Biffl for her honors thesis “Experiences of Aging, Kinship, Death, and Independence in an Independent Living Facility”
  • Emma Hanlon for her honors thesis “Negotiating Spirituality: Ritual, Language, and Space in the First Existentialist Congregation of Atlanta”

2020 Graduate Student Awards:

Marjorie Shostak Prize for Excellent and Humanity in Ethnographic Writing: Shreyas Sreenath for his dissertation “Black Spot: An Account of Caste and Discards in 21st Century Bangalore”

George Armelagos Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Graduate Student: Sara Kauko and Shreyas Sreenath

 

For award descriptions and past winners, visit our Departmental Awards webpage.

Jordan Martin publishes his Emory research in Biology Letters

Jordan Martin publishes the research he has done during his time at Emory. Martin and his colleagues find that ‘masculinized’ facial morphology associates with both aggressive and affiliative dominance behavior in bonobos (Pan paniscus), one of human’s closest living relatives. Their study suggests that developmental androgen exposure may cause associations between facial morphology, personality, and dominance status in both humans and non-human primates.

Read the full article.

Abbe McCarter (C19) receives Bradley Currey Jr. Seminar Award

Anthropology and human biology graduate Abbe McCarter  received the Bradley Currey Jr. Seminar Award for her project “Food Insecurity on the Cattaraugus Reservation.” This was part of her honors thesis titled “Windows into the Lived Experiences and Health Consequences of Food Insecurity on the Cattaraugus Reservation: Implications for Indigenous Peoples’ Food Sovereignty”. She graduated in May with highest honors.

“I am beyond grateful for the Rose Library and their consideration for the Bradley abbe.pngCurrey Jr. Seminar Award. This award allowed me to travel to the Seneca Nation of Indians’ Cattaraugus Reservation and conduct first hand qualitative and quantitative research. The experience as a whole provided me with significant lessons in conducting anthropological research as I examined the lived experiences and health consequences of food insecurity and sovereignty for Indigenous Peoples. I am certain that this award, the mentorship of Dr. Vidali and the rest of Emory’s Anthropology department, and the completion of my honors thesis, contributed to me achieving my current position – as the 2019/20 Melvin Ember intern with HRAF at Yale University working with some of the most important minds and data in cross-cultural research. Having the opportunity to travel to the Cattaraugus Reservation was absolutely critical, and allowed me to foster relationships with interlocutors in the field and embark upon a course of study which will continue to grow for years to come thanks to the Bradley Currey Jr. Seminar Award!”

She is one of eleven Emory students who recently received undergraduate research awards for their library research. Read more in the Emory News Center.

 

 

 

Alumni Spotlight – Suma Ikeuchi (19PhD)

Suma Ikeuchi (16PhD), Assistant Professor of Liberal Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has several publications and travel plans coming up this summer. Her first book, Jesus Loves Japan: Return Migration and Global Pentecostalism in a pid_30006.jpgBrazilian Diaspora, has just been published by Stanford University Press (June 2019). With the Engaged Anthropology Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, she is traveling to Japan and Brazil this summer to share the research results with the migrants who participated in the study and to deliver lectures at a number of universities in both countries including Nanzan University and the University of São Paulo. Her most recent article, “From Slaves to Agents: Pentecostal Ethic and Precarious Labor among Brazilian Migrants in Toyota, Japan” has also been published by The Journal of the American Academy of Religion (JAAR), the premier academic journal in religious studies. She is also expanding her scholarship to an exciting new direction by exploring the crossroads of Anthropology and Art. A panel discussion with several prominent Japanese anthropologists titled “Writing, Creating, and Teaching at the Intersection of Art and Anthropology” will take place this summer at Kyoto City University of Arts.

Katya Bobrek (19C) received NSF funding

Anthropology major Katya Bobrek was one of six recent Emory graduates to receive NSF funding and the only one to be awarded the prestigious grand right after receiving her undergraduate degree. She graduated in May with high honors in Anthropology and Human Biology. The title of her honors thesis was “Genomic Analysis and Natural Selection Scan of Mexican Mayan and Indigenous Populations” and her advisor was Dr. John Lindo.

“I’m so thankful for the opportunity given to me by NSF. What excites me the most aboutbobrek.png my research is its interdisciplinary nature. I would never have found this niche if not for the education I received at the Emory Anthropology department. There I discovered my love of anthropology, health, and scientific research. It’s because of Emory Anthropology that I found what I am most passionate about.” Katya Bobrek

Read more in the Emory News Center.

Kristen Kaufman (19C) is recognized as student employee of the year

Emory-7264.jpgKristen graduated in May with highest honors in Anthropology and also minored in Sustainability. She has worked with the Office of Sustainability Initiative on the zero waste policies.

“I have learned so much about how to make change happen thanks to the sustainability initiatives at Emory. Through collaborating with administrators, faculty, staff, and student peers in the process of working towards a sustainable Emory, I have met inspiring people across the University and forged connections that contribute not only to my sense of place but also to my professional development.

Through working as a student employee with the Office, I have also been able to understand the links between my education in the classroom and real-world translation and application. I think people are so fundamental to understanding sustainability and sustainable outcomes, so studying anthropology has been as necessary supplement to my sustainability work and a fundamental influence in my thinking. Both working with OSI and studying anthropology were invaluable for my skills development, my understanding of people and the world around me, and the evolution of my sustainable vision for the future.”

Congratulations Kristen!

Anthropology Major Farah Al Chammas receives prestigious 2019 Bobby Jones Scholarship

Al_Chammas_Farah (1)Anthropology and Human Biology Major Farah Al Chammas is one of four outstanding Emory seniors who will be attending the University of St. Andrews in Scotland on the Bobby Jones Scholarship.

“Emory has changed my life in every possible way and the Bobby Jones Scholarship is ensuring that that continues beyond my time at Emory. [At the University of St. Andrews] I will be pursuing a Masters in International Development Practice, which is an interdisciplinary degree that allows me to enjoy the taste of Emory’s liberal arts nature that I so loved and capitalized on as an undergraduate. It is an honor to be a representative for this institution that has opened my world so I can grow and give back to Emory itself and beyond.”

Congratulation Farah!

Douglas Falen (92C) publishes new book on African Science

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Douglas Falen (C’92) is a cultural anthropologist at nearby Agnes Scott College in Decatur. His new ethnography, African Science: Witchcraft, Vodun, and Healing in Southern Benin (University of Wisconsin Press) examines the ways that Benin’s occult world blends notions of magic, science, and religion. In emphasizing the moral ambivalence of human acts, Beninois people compare African witchcraft to western technology, known as “white people’s witchcraft.” The books explains how “witchcraft”  becomes a universal, all-encompassing term that allows Beninois people to incorporate foreign religions and esoteric traditions, including Hindu mysticism and Freemasonry, into a single category.Falen.AfricanScience.c.jpg

Kwame Phillips (14PhD) and Debra Vidali present ethnographic work at the British Museum in London

Kwame Phillips (14PhD) and Debra Vidali present ethnographic work at the British Museum in London

Kwame Phillips (14PhD and faculty member at John Cabot University in Rome, Italy) and Emory Department of Anthropology Professor Debra Vidali are presenting and installing experimental ethnographic work at the British Museum in London on June 2. Their project “Kabusha Radio Remix,” is an ethnographic sound installation that turns the tables on colonial soft power and creates a tribute to the late David Yumba, wise man of the Zambian airwaves. The installation re-purposes archived audio recordings from Yumba’s popular Radio Zambia program, Kabusha Takolelwe Bowa (a Bemba proverb meaning “The Person Who Inquires First, Is Not Poisoned by a Mushroom” or “The One Who Asks Questions, Never Goes Wrong”). Learn more about the remix project on the Bemba Online Project. Phillips and Vidali’s presentation Collisions of Memory, Voice, Sound, and Physicality though a Multi-sensorial Radio Remix Installation will be at the Art, Materiality and Representation conference, hosted by The Royal Anthropological Institute, The British Museum, and University of London SOAS.