Category: Public Scholarship

Lydia King, Anthropology major, awarded the Robert T. Jones Scholarship

Emory College students (left-to-right) Lydia King, David Lee, Elizabeth Martin and Lucas San Miguel have been selected to be Bobby Jones Scholars at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.

Read full article here.

“Lydia King,

A Dean’s Scholar and Oxford College graduate who grew up in Rwanda and Kenya, Lydia King first cultivated her college community at the Oxford Organic Farm. The experience inspired her to start Oxford’s campus garden, as well as Emory’s gardening club on the Atlanta campus.

Her interest in her fellow student farm workers prompted her first anthropological study — ethnographies on the role that the work played in student mental health — and led to a double major in linguistics and anthropology and human biology. She later crafted a research project on the language of undergraduate reflection, which was presented in the U.S. and at Lancaster University in the U.K.

At every step since, King has combined what one recommender called a “profound ability to connect with people” with a passion for communication and public health to become a leader in several academic, community and research endeavors.

On campus, she served as a leader with Volunteer Oxford and Volunteer Emory, a tutor at the Emory Writing Center and president of the Emory Gender Expansive and Women’s Ultimate Frisbee team. King also volunteered with Open Hand Atlanta and the International Rescue Committee. 

Her interest in connections between place and health led to an internship on the education team of the CDC Museum in Atlanta, and last summer, work as a community engagement intern with the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund in Rwanda. She also works in the lab of Emory environmental scientist Tom Gillespie, conducting a qualitative analysis of interviews of community members and health care workers who live in the regions surrounding Gombe National Park in Tanzania. She received the Trevor E. Stokol scholarship for the project, as she expands her research for her honors thesis. 

King will pursue a master’s of research in social anthropology at St Andrews, combining ethnographic research and linguistic analysis on the study of zoonotic diseases. She plans to pursue a career in global health, promoting more effective research and communication between the U.S. and nations of East Africa.”

Congratulations Lydia!

Emory Anthropology Alumni Lucia Buscemi awarded Fulbright Fellowship

Lucia Buscemi graduated from Emory University in 2024 with a B.A. in Anthropology and a B.S. in Environmental Science. They are now working as a researcher in Nepal under the Fulbright US Student Researcher Program. Lucia’s project focuses on investigating the impacts of climate change on mountain tourism and traditional migration patterns in the Khumbu Valley (Everest region) in collaboration with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and Sagarmatha Next. Lucia’s interest in studying the effects of anthropogenic activities in the Nepalese Himalayas began with their experience as a Halle Institute Undergraduate Fellow at Emory.

During the summer of 2022, Lucia received a grant through Halle to conduct research for their Anthropology honors thesis in the Khumbu region. Their thesis research focused on the effects of the adventure tourism industry and climate change on the culture and livelihoods of residents of the Everest region, exploring how the autonomy of these communities is affected by and persists through recent anthropogenic changes. Lucia’s Fulbright research builds upon their prior experiences in Nepal, including an internship at Sagarmatha Next in Kathmandu during the summer of 2023, where they developed a sustainability certification program designed specifically for lodges and hotels in the Himalayas. Their upcoming Fulbright project is poised to offer valuable insights into the intricate interplay between climate change, tourism dynamics, and socio-economic patterns in the Himalayan region. 

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program expands perspectives through academic and professional advancement and cross-cultural dialogue. Fulbright creates connections in a complex and changing world. In partnership with more than 140 countries worldwide, the Fulbright U.S. Student Program offers unparalleled opportunities in all academic disciplines to passionate and accomplished graduating college seniors, graduate students, and young professionals from all backgrounds. Program participants pursue graduate study, conduct research, or teach English abroad. 

Congratulations Lucia!

Emory Anthropology senior Gracie Wilson wins Lambda Alpha Senior Scholarship

Anthropology BA graduate Gracie Wilson (Ox’21, C’23) is the national first place recipient of the Lambda Alpha National Anthropology Honor Society Senior Scholarship, including $5,000 to help fund her graduate study in anthropology. Each Lambda Alpha chapter may put forward one nominee for the senior scholarship each year. Nominees must be Anthropology majors, Lambda Alpha members, and plan to attend graduate school in Anthropology. The last time Emory’s chapter nominee was selected as the national winner was in 2002.

Gracie was selected as the nominee for Emory’s Lambda Alpha chapter (Beta of Georgia) based on her excellence and leadership in anthropology research. Her senior honors thesis, “The Culture of College Mental Health”, supervised by Oxford professor Alicia DeNicola and ECAS professor Chikako Ozawa-de Silva, began as a research project at Emory’s Oxford College with the goal of better understanding student mental health from an ethnographic approach. The project expanded as Gracie led a team of fellow undergraduate students, and continued across Emory’s two campuses once Gracie transitioned to Emory College and joined the honors program. The team’s findings provide insight into student mental health cultures and how student mental health is created through a series of shared values, narratives, and identities. The work has been presented at the Georgia Undergraduate Research Conference at Valdosta State University and is currently being developed for publication.  

As a graduate student at the University of Chicago pursuing a PhD in Comparative Human Development, Gracie will continue to use anthropological inquiry to explore the ways in which we understand and support college students as they navigate disability, illness, and managed care across educational settings. She is also passionate about the ways anthropology can collaborate with other disciplines– namely with social work, counseling, and the clinical space.

Gracie graduated from Emory this May with Highest Honors in Anthropology, with a concentration in Power, Identity, and Social Justice.

Laney Graduate School PhD Candidate, William Boose, Wins a Fulbright

William Boose, Laney Graduate School PhD candidate in Anthropology, has been awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student Program award by the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board for the 2023-2024 academic year to study in Peru.

The Fulbright Program is the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program and is supported by the U.S. and partner countries around the world. More than 2,000 diverse U.S. students, artists, and early career professionals in more than 100 different fields of study receive Fulbright U.S. Student Program awards annually to study, teach English, and conduct research overseas.

In his Fulbright-funded dissertation research in Peru, titled “Motorcycle Taxis and Urban Modernity: A Comparative Study in Lima and Iquitos,” Boose will critically study the governance of mototaxis (motorcycle taxis) as situated within broader notions of urban “modernity” and “development” in two cities.

Read the full article here!

Anthropology Student Awards 2023

2023 Undergraduate Student Awards

The Anthropology Department is pleased to announce our 2023 student award winners! For award descriptions and past winners, visit our Departmental Awards webpage. We are so proud of our many impressive students!

Outstanding Senior Award: Hunter Akridge, Rachel Broun

Outstanding Junior Award: Elizabeth Whiteside

Marjorie Shostak Award for Excellence and Humanity in Ethnography:

  • Pamela Beniwal  for her honors thesis “The Effect of Commercialization, Militarization, and Stigmatization of the Breast Cancer Awareness Movement on Breast Cancer Patients”, advised by Mel Konner.
  • Audrey Lu for her ANT 372W class project “The Lives of Charting: An Emergency Room Scribe’s Perspective (ANT 372W project)”, advised by Anna Grimshaw.
  • Alvaro Perez Daisson for his honors thesis “Race-related Health Disparities in Cuba in the Context of COVID-19”, advised by Mel Konner and Kristin Phillips.
  • Christopher Zeuthen for his honors thesis “Veteran Perspectives on Moral Injury”, advised by Mel Konner.

Photo from left to right: Professor Robert Paul, Christopher Zeuthen, Professor Melvin Konner, Audrey Lu, Alvaro Perez Daisson, and Pamela Beniwal.

Trevor E. Stokol Scholarship for Undergraduate Research:

  • 1st Place: Eric Li
  • Maddie Hasson
  • Raya Islam (not pictured)

2023 Graduate Student Awards

The George Armelagos Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Graduate Student: AJ Jones, Caroline Owens

Delores P. Aldridge Award: Adrian Cato

New Center for Native and Indigenous Studies set to launch in Fall 2023

Emory College of Arts and Sciences is set to launch a new Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies this fall to advance and inspire research, scholarship, teaching and learning rooted in and related to Indigenous studies.

In conjunction with the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, and through seven years of ongoing work by an interdisciplinary group involving dozens of faculty, students and staff including Dr. Craig Womack (emeritus, English), Dr. Malinda Maynor Lowery (History), Associate Dean Beth Michel (OUA), Anthropology alumna Klamath Henry (C19), current Anthropology seniors Iliyah Bruffett (C23) and Sierra Talavera Brown (C23), and Anthropology faculty member Dr. Debra Vidali, Emory University is launching a Center for Native and Indigenous Studies in Fall 2023.  

Check out the full article here!

Anthropology major Maddie Hasson, along with three Emory juniors win elite Goldwater Scholarships.

Four extraordinary Emory College juniors — Jojo Liu, Yingrong “Momo” Chen, Maddie Hasson, and Tamecka Marcheau-Miller — have won the Goldwater Scholarship, the nation’s top scholarship for undergraduates studying math, natural sciences and engineering. This year’s winners, who have made major contributions in labs and authored or co-authored papers on their research, all plan to pursue doctoral degrees in their respective fields. They join 45 previous Emory recipients of the award, which was endowed by Congress in 1986 to honor the late Sen. Barry Goldwater.

Maddie Hasson is an Anthropology major and rising senior honors student who also won the Trevor E. Stokol scholarship for her undergraduate research.

Congratulations Maddie and to everyone on outstanding academic achievements!

Read the full article and winners’ biographies here!

Dr. Justin Hosbey Co-edits Online Series on Black Ecologies

Dr. Justin Hosbey

The #BlackEcologies series is a digital humanities project that Dr. Hosbey is co-editing on the Black Perspectives blog, the online home of the African American Intellectual History Society. #BlackEcologies brings together research from scholars in the humanities and social sciences that critically address the enduring legacies of racism by exploring the ways that Black diaspora communities experience environmental catastrophe. This multimodal project will feature essays, photo-essays, digital storytelling projects, as well as short documentaries. Our goal is to explore how Afro-descendant people work to resist ecocide – intellectually, politically, and in practice. The introductory page to the series can be found here.

Contemporary LatinX Studies – ECAS Cluster Hire

Emory College of Arts and Sciences in Atlanta, Georgia announces a special initiative to recruit and support several tenure-track and tenured faculty (advanced assistant and/or associate/full professors) in the area of contemporary LatinX studies in the humanities and social sciences. Faculty whose research advances this emerging field of scholarship, who bring a demonstrated commitment to mentoring a diverse student body, and who are eager to contribute to the University’s ambitious goals of scholarly excellence, diversity and inclusivity, and interdisciplinarity are encouraged to apply.  This search will complement Emory’s growing distinction in the scholarship of race and the African American experience, recent faculty appointments in the departments of Spanish and Portuguese and Religion, our exceptional archival holdings and special collections in the Rose Library, partnerships with Atlanta-based institutions, and a commitment to interdisciplinary scholarship and collaboration.  Departments participating in this multi-field search include: African American Studies, Anthropology, Art History, Economics, English, Film and Media Studies, Philosophy, Political Science, Religion, Sociology, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.  Research and teaching expertise including but not limited to the following fields are of particular interest: LatinX and Afro LatinX literature, art, and culture, philosophy, citizenship, race, gender, sexuality, religion, political economy of migration, labor, and health. All applicants must have a demonstrated commitment to teaching and mentoring a diverse student body. Candidates must hold a Ph.D. in a relevant discipline/field.

 

Review of applications will begin October 8, 2018.  Full consideration will be given to all applications received within 30 days.  Review will continue until positions are filled.  At this stage, we ask applicants to submit a cover letter, names and contact information of three references, and a CV.  Candidates’ cover letters should include a discussion of their experience and vision regarding the teaching and mentorship of students of diverse backgrounds.

 

Emory University is an equal employment opportunity and affirmative action employer. Women, minorities, people with disabilities and veterans are strongly encouraged to apply.

 

Application Instructions:

Applicants are asked to submit a cover letter and CV only during this phase of the recruitment using the following link:  https://apply.interfolio.com/56210.  Candidates will be asked to submit additional supporting materials if selected to participate in future phases of recruitment.   Questions may be sent to: Carla Freeman, Senior Associate Dean of Faculty:  Dean_of_Faculty@emory.edu

Science Seen visited Dietrich Stout’s lab

“Science Seen” is dedicated to showcasing science at Emory and giving a behind-the-scenes look at how science and research is done. Science Seen visited Dietrich Stout’s lab to learn more about how researchers there are recreating the past to better understand the human mind. Watch the Video on Facebook and learn more about Science Seen on Instagram.