Category: Undergraduate Program

Congratulations to our 2025 Honors Students!

Congratulations to our graduating students who received honors from their thesis.
Read more about this year’s honors students and their projects on our 2025 Honors Students page.

Honors Students 
Helen Andrade
Thesis Title: Cultural perceptions of Autism Among Hispanic Youth
Advisor: Dr. John Lindo

Maya Ashe
Thesis Title: I Am Smart, I am Kind…and I Am Black: Examining Black Motherhood in the 21stCentury
Advisor: Dr. Bayo Holsey

Peter Attarian
Thesis Title: Outside the Grid: Self-Reliant Communities in the Ouachita Mountains
Advisor: Dr. Kristin Phillips

Neha Bajaj
Thesis Title: Distinct Resting-State Functional Brain Connectivity Profiles in Healthy Aging and Parkinson’s Disease-Driven Neurodegeneration
Advisor: Dr. Madeleine Hackney and Dr. John Lindo

Jada Brown
Thesis Title: Sunshine and Exclusion: The Legacy of Sundown Towns in a Tourist Paradise
Advisor: Dr. Bayo Holsey

Grace Cayless
Thesis Title: Early Life Adversity in Chimpanzees: The Role of Disease Exposure
Advisor: Dr. Bayo Holsey

Ava Coates
Thesis Title: Ancient Greek Legacy in Sicily: Traversing fromt he Ancient to theModern
Advisor: Dr. Sandra Blakely

Julianna Cruz
Thesis Title: Behind the Statistics: Deconstructing the Sociocultural Contexts of Hispanic and Latinx Patient Outcomes, Undocumented Narratives, and Underrepresentation in Kidney Disease Research
Advisor: Dr. John Lindo

Maura Dianno
Thesis Title: Effectiveness of the Implementation of Routing Screening of Relative Energy Dificiency Syndrome in Female Atheletes
Advisor: Dr. John Lindo

Kaela Goldstein
Thesis Title: Weaving Two Worlds: The Next Generations of Ethiopian Jewelry in Israel
Advisor: Dr. Don Seeman

Shriya Iyer
Thesis Title: At the Interface of the Human Host and Bacteria: Stress Signaling Via Cyclic AMP and Calcium
Advisor: Dr. Rabindra Tirouvanziam

Sarah Jung
Thesis Title: Exploring Motives for Participation in Genomic Research
Advisor: Dr. Rohan Palmer

Isabella Kaufman
Thesis Title: Identification of long-acting HIV-1 antiviral pairings and analysis of societal implications of shifting patient-care models
Advisor: Dr. Craig Hadley and Dr. Stefan Sarafianos

Lydia King
Thesis Title: Promoting Effective Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Communication Materials, Through a Multidisciplinary Analysis of Community Health Practices in Gombe-Masito-Ugalla Ecosystem
Advisor: Dr. Craig Hadley and Dr. Gillespie

Anusha Kothari
Thesis Title: Qualitative Analysis of Influences Behind Lifestyle Behaviors Regarding Cardiometobolic Health in South Asian Immigrants
Advisor: Dr. Harshita Kamath and Dr. Bobby Paul

Anna Little
Thesis Title: Ethnographic Theater for Memory Care Residents
Advisor: Dr. Debra Vidali

Fiona Meyer
Thesis Title: The Intertwined and Independent Predictive Roles of Maternal Age, Anti-Müllerian Hormone (AMH), and Oocyte Quantity during In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)
Advisor: Dr. Alicia Smith and Dr. Anna Knight

Shreya Ramanathan
Thesis Title: Assessing Barriers to Preventative Cancer Screening & Care for Refugee and Immigrant Women in Georgia
Advisor: Dr. Saria Hassan

Rashimi Raveendran
Thesis Title: What’s Good for the Goose May Not Be Good for the Gander: An Analysis of Cardiovascular Disease Risk Comprehension Amonst South Asians and Providers 
Advisor: Dr. Craig Hadley

Zinnia Robinson
Thesis Title: The Ballroom Masquerade: Gen-Z’s Dance with AAE and Intersectional Language
Advisor: Dr. Erica Britt

Kylie Taylor
Thesis Title: Exploring Endothelial Cell Sources for Brain Vasculature Modeling in 2D and 3D Cultures
Advisor: Dr. Steven Sloan

Donna Torres
Thesis Title: Language and Care: Access to Healthcare Among Hispanic Communities
Advisor: Dr. Don Seeman

Congratulations to our 2025 Anthropology Student Award Winners!

Congratulations to our 2025 Student Award Winners!

2025 Anthropology Student Awards
The Anthropology Department is pleased to announce our 2025 student award winners!  Undergraduate awards are presented at our annual Honors and Awards Ceremony on Friday, April 25. We are so proud of our many impressive students. Please join us in congratulating them!

Outstanding Senior Award: Peter Attarian, Grace Cayless, and Marian Moss
Outstanding Junior Award: Yijia “Jackie” Zhou
Trevor E. Stokol Scholarship(awarded for 2025-26): Theodore Lin, Demissie Mahliet, Jaanaki Radhakrishnan, Daniel Sorungbe, Sasha Trukhnova, Anna Yego
Marjorie Shostak Award, Undergraduate: Peter Attarian and Marian Moss
Marjorie Shostak Award, Graduate: Peter Habib and Sana Noon
George Armelagos Award: Peter Habib, Sarah Kovalaskas, and Will Boose

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!

Congratulations to our 2024 Anthropology Honors Students!

Read more about this year’s honors students and their projects on our 2024 Honors Students page.

(left to right: Dr. Robert Paul, Sarah Vickery-Hartanto*, Kevin Gunawardana*, Elizabeth Whiteside, Isabel Staton, Ezra Packard, Emily Silver, Sona Davis, Eric Li) *Sarah and Kevin are on track to graduate with honors in December 2024.

Sona Davis
Thesis Title: Investigating the role of the BAF Complex in Human Disease and Evolution
Advisor: David Gorkin, John Lindo

Maddie Hasson
Thesis Title: Guiding Cell Perception of its Microenvironment for Enhanced Microfracture Repair
Advisor: Jay Patel, Craig Hadley

Raya Islam
Thesis Title: Mapping Bengali New York
Advisor: Yami Rodriguez

Emily Jang
Thesis Title: Exploring Beliefs & Identity: The Internal & External World of Asian Americans
Advisor: Chikako Ozawa-de Silva, Brendan Ozawa-de Silva

Qucheng (Eric) Li
Thesis Title: Sinicizing Muslims: Haunting, Punitiveness, and Sacrifice in Neoliberalizing China
Advisor: Michael Peletz

Ezra Packard
Thesis Title: The Stories Behind Atlanta Food Growing: Oral History and Exhibition as Research Method
Advisor: Kristin Phillips, Jonathan Coulis

Emily Silver
Thesis Title: Community Organizing in Atlanta: Perspectives from the AIDS Crisis and COVID-19 Pandemic
Advisor: Rachel Hall-Clifford

Andrea Snoddy
Thesis Title: Myths and Medicine: Analyzing Medical Racism in the Atlanta Metropolitan Area
Advisor: John Lindo

Isabel Staton
Thesis Title: Farmers in the Storm: Exploring Alternative Risk Management Strategies Amid Winter Storm Elliott
Advisor: Hilary King

Phoebe Taiwo
Thesis Title: Examining the Relationship Between Physical and Mental Comorbidities and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Serostatus in Black Women
Advisor: Anna Rubstova

Elizabeth Whiteside
Thesis Title: Uncovering Menopause in Tufted Capuchin Monkeys (Sapajus apella): Analyzing the Relationship between Estradiol, Aging, and Behavioral Estrus in a Captive Population
Advisor: Marcela Benitez

Congratulations to our 2024 Anthropology student award winners!

2024 Anthropology Student Awards

The Anthropology Department is pleased to announce our 2024 student award winners! Undergraduate awards were presented at our annual Honors and Awards Ceremony on Friday, April 26th. For award descriptions and past winners, visit our Departmental Awards webpage.  We are so proud of our many impressive students.  Please join us in congratulating them!

Outstanding Senior Award: 

  • Eric Li
  • Ezra Packard
  • Elizabeth Whiteside

Outstanding Junior Award: 

  • Krishna Sanaka

Marjorie Shostak Award for Excellence and Humanity in Ethnography:

  • AJ Jones  for her dissertation “Performing the Missing X: Sex, Gender, Disability, and Ambivalent Identity Politics in the United States”, advised by Chikako Ozawa-de Silva and nominated by Bruce Knauft.
  • Sasha Tycko for her photographic installation “Ways of the Atlanta Forest”, advised by Anna Grimshaw.
  • Galya Fischer for her Capstone project “Side by Side: An Exploration of Accessibility and Anthropological Research”, advised by Anna Grimshaw.

Trevor E. Stokol Scholarship for Undergraduate Research 2024-25:

  • Peter Attarian
  • Kaela Goldstein
  • Kevin Gunawardana
  • Sarah Jung
  • Lydia King

George Armelagos Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Graduate Student:

  • Katy Lindquist
  • Sophie Joseph

Professor Debra Vidali’s ethnographic theater project in Toronto featured University of Minnesota Duluth blog.

Professor Debra Vidali presented her ethnographic theater project at a meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Toronto recently in November 2023 and has been featured in a blog by Dr. Mitra Emad, the Associate Dean at the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Dr. Emad at this to say about Professor Vidali’s project:

“Recently at the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association, I attended a follow-up event to a workshop in which anthropologists explored theater making initiatives by clearing a room of furniture and embodying/acting out the text of on ethnographer’s fieldnotes. Many of them had never met before this experiment and the workshop organizer, Debra Vidali (Emory University) functioned as the group’s choreographer. Vidali managed to choreograph a quick (“moving at the speed of light”) and profound sense of belonging in a context (academic conferences) that rarely attend to the body or the flow of resilience that moves between and among the participants. Watching the re-enact and comment upon their experience at a roundtable event the next day, I was struck by how working in and through their bodies to explicate the fieldnotes quickly created a powerful and productive sense of belonging for the impromptu group.”

Read the full blog here!

Anthropology Prof. Robert Paul and Emory celebrates 25 years of expanding compassion and ethics through science.

What began as the brainchild of Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi and Robert Paul was formalized as the Emory-Tibet Partnership in 1998 and renewed Monday at the beginning of Tibet Week.

Celebrating 25 years, the renewal of the partnership between Emory University and the Drepung Loseling Monastery included senior leadership from the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, Institute of Buddhist Dialects, and Emory University leaders President Gregory L. Fenves, Provost Ravi V. Bellamkonda and Emory College Dean Barbara Krauthamer who reviewed the Memorandum of Understanding, signed in 1998 in the presence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, with the current abbot of Drepung Loseling.

Read the full article here!

Relational Accountability and Place-Based Learning: Emory Students Participate in 31st Annual Ocmulgee Indigenous Celebration.

Traveling from Emory to Ocmulgee Mounds National Historic Park for a special place-based and community-engaged learning experience, a first-time interdisciplinary cohort of thirty-five faculty and students from Dr. Debra Vidali’s Anthropology 190–Land, Life, and Place, Dr. Loren Michael Mortimer’s History 285–Introduction to Native American History, Heidi Aklaseaq Senungetuk’s Music 460RW–North American Indigenous Music and Modernity, and Emory’s Native American Student Association participated in a vibrant celebration of Southeastern Native American cultures and heritage. This marks the first time Emory University organized an official trip to the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historic Park.

This celebration represents a collaboration with the Muscogee Nation and the Ocmulgee Mounds Association to enact Mvskoke sovereignty and educate visitors about the Indigenous presence on the land. Emory students experienced a diverse array of activities that showcased the rich heritage of the region’s Indigenous peoples. Traditional cultural crafts, captivating storytelling sessions, and educational programs provided students with meaningful connections to the living histories and thriving communities of diverse southeastern Native American people.

Read the full blog post here!

Anthropology Honors Students 2023

Congratulations to our 2023 Anthropology honors students! We wish you all the absolute best in your future endeavors!

You can read more about this year’s honors students and their projects on our 2023 Honor Students page.

Hunter Akridge
Thesis Title: Contesting the Cultural Politics of Care: How Equitable Digital Care Platforms Reimagine the Future of Work

Rachel Broun
Thesis Title: Enacting Solidarity and Negotiating Fictive Kinship: The Legal Consciousness of Black Women Working in the Criminal Legal System

Pamela Chopra Beniwal
Thesis Title: The Effect of Commercialization, Militarization, and Stigmatization of the Breast Cancer Awareness Movement on Breast Cancer Patients

Lucia Buscemi
Thesis Title: Footprints of the Roof of the World: Navigating the Impacts of Anthropogenic Activities in the Everest Region

Naomi Gonzalez-Garcia
Thesis Title: Constellations of Un-Matter(ing) & Matter(ing) through Atlanta’s Black Spaces: Anthropological Perspectives on Housing and Relationality

Ruth Korder
Thesis Title: Detecting Human Adaptations in Populations of the Andean Highlands

Danielle Mangabat
Thesis Title: Confronting Colonial Legacies: Imagining a Decolonial Future in the Philippines through Reproductive Health

Natalie McGrath
Thesis Title: Recentering the Voices of Pregnant-People and Birth Workers; Narratives of Childbirth

Atlas Moss
Thesis Title: Vocal Recognition and Social Knowledge in captive Tufted Capuchin Monkeys (Sapajus apella)

Alvaro Perez Daisson
Thesis Title: Race-related Health Disparities in the Context of COVID-19

Tanvi Shah
Thesis Title: (Re)constructing Postpartum Depression (PPD) via Cross-Specialty Analysis and an Anthropological Lens of Subjectivity 

Krithika Shrinivas
Thesis Title: Stone Tools and Sociality: Potential Effects of Conversation and Hobbies on Lithic Quality

Lizzy Wagman
Thesis Title: Genome-wide patterns of selection in pre- and post-European contact Caribbean populations

Amy Wang
Thesis Title: The Impacts of Social Media on Young Adults’ Body Images in the United States

Sam Weinstein
Thesis Title: Vocal Clues to Diabetes Mellitus: Exploring the Ethics and Tech of AI in Clinical Practice

Gracie Wilson
Thesis Title: The Culture of College Mental Health: Narratives of Stress, Value, and Belonging 

Christopher Zeuthen
Thesis Title: Qualitative Examination of Veteran Perspectives on Moral Injury

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