Where Are They Now?
The following is a showcase of alumni accomplishments to help with department & alumni relations, as well as to show current and potential PhD Candidates the diverse possibilities that a PhD in Anthropology can lead to.
If you are an alumnus and would like to update your information, please fill out our Department News form. If you would like to be featured on our website, fill out our Alumni Spotlight form.
Last updated December 2023
| Name | Dissertation Title | Graduation Year | Current Position |
| Christian Gagnon | The Evolutionary History and Adaptive Significance of UCP1-Mediated Thermogenesis in Primates | January 2024 | Postdoctoral Fellowship, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany |
| Rongrong Xu | Miracle of Backwardness: A Lay Daoism For Young People in Contemporary China | January 2024 | Asst. Professor, Anthropology, Xiamen University |
| Faye Harwell | Investigation of the Life History, Male Bimaturism, and Sex Differences of Orangutans | May 2023 | *pending update* |
| Mehrdad Babadi | Marriage Postponed: The Transformation of Intimacy in contemporary Iran | May 2023 | Omar Khayyam Postdoctoral Research Associate in Iranian Studies, Brown University Center for Middle Eastern Studies |
| Graham Albert | Testing the Effects of Facial Sexual Dimorphism on Selective Attention, Memory, and Decision Making | January 2023 |
Quantitative Social Scientist, Acrisure
|
| Gana Ndiaye | ‘Plastic Migrants’: Race, Religion, and the Making of a Senegalese Community in Brazil | August 2022 | Asst. Professor, Anthropology, Beloit College, Wisconsin |
| Emily Williamson Ibrahim | Folded Speech: A Semiotics of Uncertainty in an Accra Zongo | August 2022 | Asst. Professor, Socio-cultural Anthropology, Kenyon College |
| Calynn Dowler | Tides of Change: Water, Religion, and Ethics in the Sundarbans Delta | August 2022 | Asst. Professor, Religious Studies, Vanderbilt University |
| Kevin Francis Boueri | Trail of Dreams: Journeys of Belonging on the Lebanon Mountain Trail | January 2022 | Optum (health tech company) as a Senior User Experience Researcher |
| Maria Claire Codlin | Hunting and Husbandry at Teotihuacan, Mexico: An Application of Zooarchaeology, Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry, and Stable Isotopes to Animal Economies in an Ancient City of the Americas | May 2022 | Research Fellow, University of Turin, Italy |
| Kathleen Forste | An Archaeobotanical Investigation of Early Islamic Agricultural Economy in the Levant | September 2021 | Lecturer, Archaeology Program, Boston University Macrobotanical Analyst and Consultant, Atlatl Archaeology Ltd |
| Laura Ann Chang Tourtellotte | Deserving Daughters, Martyred Mothers: Reproductive Politics, Pronatalism, and Care Work in the Creation of Gendered Subjects in Kazakhstan | September 2021 | Engagement / Product Manager, Massachusetts Digital Service |
| Noha Roushdy | Between Class and Nation: International Education and the Dilemmas of Elite Belonging in Contemporary Egypt | May 2021 | Postdoctoral Assistant, Institute for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Societies, Universität Bern |
| Amy Scott | Sexual Selection and Sexual Conflict in the Reproductive Strategies of Bornean Orangutans | May 2021 | Postdoctoral Researcher-Conservation Genetics, University of New Hampshire |
| Andrea Blackburn | Orangutan seed dispersal effectiveness and spatial distribution patterns | May 2021 | Postdoctoral Associate, Santa Barbara Zoo, Conservation and Science Department |
| Jeffrey Bristol | Sharia, the American Way | May 2020 | Senior Associate, Parrish & Associates Law Firm |
| Dat Manh Nguyen | Crafting a Buddhist Public: Urban Buddhism and Youth Aspirations in Late-Socialist Vietnam | May 2020 | Postdoctoral Researcher & Program Director, NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (Amsterdam) |
| Annika Schmeding | Sufis in Afghanistan: Religious Authority and Succession in an Insecure Age | May 2020 | Senior Researcher, NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Amsterdam |
| Mary Mildred (Mimi) Stith | With and Without Them: Thinking Through Binaries in Serengeti Conservation Science | May 2020 | Managing Director, The Pula Group |
| Mary Clarke | Producing Stone and State: The Intersection of Domestic and Institutional Economies in Classic Maya Society |
May 2020 | Lecturer in Archaeology, Boston University |
| Feyza Burak Adli | Trajectories of modern Sufism: an ethnohistorical study of the Rifai order and social change in Turkey | September 2019 | Postdoctoral Fellow & Lecturer in Anthropology, Northwestern University |
| Justin Holcomb | Geoarchaeology of the Palaeolithic in the Aegean Basin, Greece: A Deposit-Centered Approach and Its Implications for Hominin Dispersals in the Pleistocene | September 2019 | Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Kansas and Kansas Geological Survey |
| Yang Shen | Sidestepping Secularism: Performance and Imagination in Buddhist Temple-Scapes in Contemporary China | September 2019 | Asst. Professor, Zhejiang University |
| Andrea L. DiGiorgio | Nutrient drivers and movement ecology of wild Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii) foraging choices | May 2019 | Princeton Writing Seminar Faculty, Princeton University |
| Erica M. Larson | Civic and religious education in Manado, Indonesia: ethical deliberation about plural coexistence | May 2019 | Research Fellow, Religion and Globalization Cluster, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore |
| Natalie Laudicina | Comparative primate birth mechanics and the evolution of human childbirth | May 2019 | Asst. Professor, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Grand Valley State University |
| Laura E. Masur | Priestly plantations: an archaeology of capitalism and community in British North America | May 2019 | Asst. Professor of Anthropology, Catholic University |
| Jacob D. Negrey | The hormonal and immunological correlates of social dominance in wild male chimpanzees | May 2019 | Asst. Professor, School of Anthropology at the University of Arizona |
| Mohammad Omar Sharifi | The Nauroz festival as a social site: understanding faith, ethnicity, and nation-ness in Afghanistan | May 2019 | Asst. Professor of Humanities; Director & Senior Research Fellow American Institute for Afghan Studies, American University of Afghanistan, Kabul; American Institute for Afghan Studies (now in exile at University of Minnesota, International Relations) |
| Laura Heath-Stout | Diversity, Identity, and Oppression in the Production of Archaeological Knowledge | September 2019 | Postdoctoral Scholar, Archaeology, Stanford University |
| Carol Ferrara | Pious citizens of the republic: Muslim and Catholic negotiations of national identity and ethical plurality in contemporary France | January 2019 | Asst. Professor, Marketing and Communications, Emerson College |
| Ekaterina Anderson | Nervous conditions: cultural difference, political rifts, and mental health care in Israel | September 2018 | Researcher, VA Center for Healthcare Organization & Implementation Research |
| Martha Lagace | Farming the tarmac: rootedness and longing for the world in post-war Northern Uganda | September 2018 | Faculty Affiliate, Institute for Immigration Research, George Mason University |
| Michel Chambon | Materiality and Christianity in Nanping: making God present | May 2018 | Research Fellow, Religion and Globalization Cluster, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore |
| Alexander Claxton | A Re-Assessment of Femoral Neck Cortical Thickness | May 2018 | Lecturer, Dartmouth College |
| Chelsea Shields | The social life of placebos: proximate and evolutionary mechanisms of biocultural interactions in Asante medical encounters | May 2018 | Owner, Alien Ideas, LLC |
| Caitlin O’Connell | The costs and benefits of sociality explored in wild Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii) | January 2018 | Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania |
| Aviva Cormier | Maya Osteobiographies of the Holmul Region, Guatemala: Curating LifeHistories Through Bioarchaeology and Stable Isotope Analysis | May 2018 | Visiting Assistant Professor, Vassar College |
| Elizabeth (Liz) Crocker | Moral geographies of diasporic belonging: race, ethnicity, and identity among Haitian Vodou practitioners in Boston | May 2017 | Program Manager, Communication at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) |
| Andrea Chiovenda | Crafting masculine selves: culture, war and psychodynamics among Afghan Pashtuns | September 2015 | Asst. Professor, Humanities & Social Sciences, Zayed University, Saudia Arabia |
| Lynsey Farrell | Hustling NGOs: coming of age in Kibera slum, Nairobi, Kenya | September 2015 | Senior Lecturer in International Studies and Director of Africa Program, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania |
| Jajang Jahroni | The political economy of knowledge: Salafism in post-Soeharto urban Indonesia | September 2015 | Professor of Islamic Studies, UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Islamic University, Jakarta, Indonesia |
| Mary Chloe Mulderig | Present imperfect: hypocrisy and the pluralization of Islamic understanding in Fes, Morocco | May 2015 | Founder and Head of Research & Design, MulderigDesign |
| Mentor Mustafa | From the ashes of atheism: the reconstitution of Bektashi religious life in postcommunist Albania | May 2015 | Lecturer, Dept of Anthropology & MET College, Boston University |
| Paula D. Pryce | Monastic Ritual, Intentional Living, and Varieties of Knowledge in American Contemplative Christianity | May 2015 | Lecturer and Research Associate, Department of Anthropology, University of British Columbia; Research Associate, Vancouver School of Theology |
| Chun-Yi Sum | “Therefore I am made indifferent”: morality and agency among university students in China | May 2015 | Lecturer, Social Sciences, College of General Studies, Boston University |
| Christopher B. Taylor | Islamic charity in India: ethical entrepreneurism & the ritual, revival, and reform of zakat among a Muslim minority | May 2015 |
Vice President, Open Technology Fund
Affiliate Scholar, Center for Global Islamic Studies, George Mason University
|
| Huwy-Min “Lucia” Liu | Dying socialist in capitalist Shanghai: ritual, governance, and subject formation in urban China’s modern funeral industry | January 2015 | Asst. Professor of Sociology & Anthropology, George Mason University |
| Sumanto Al Qurtuby | Interreligious violence, civic peace, and citizenship: Christians and Muslims in Maluku, eastern Indonesia | May 2013 | Associate Professor of Anthropology, Department of Global & Social Studies, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Saudi Arabia |
| Edward M. Callahan, Jr. | To rule the roof of the world: power and patronage in Afghan Kyrgyz society | May 2013 | Associate Behavioral Scientist, RAND Corporation |
| Lara Saipe Durgavich | Ovarian function and reproductive behaviors across the female orangutan life cycle | May 2013 | Visiting Faculty in Anthropology, Tufts University; Harvard 2021-2022; Boston University |
| En-Chieh Chao | Women of fire, women of the robe: subjectivities of charismatic Christianity and normative Islam in Java, Indonesia | January 2013 | Professor of Sociology, National Sun Yat-Sen University in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. |
| Arianna Huhn | Sustenance and sociability: foodways in mozambican town | January 2013 | Associate Professor & Director of the CSUSB Anthropology Museum, California State University, San Bernadino |
| Andrew B. Armstrong | The Japanese “Ghetto-Gangsta”: searching for prestige in Kansai hip hop performance | May 2012 | Adjunct Professor, Bridgewater State University |
| Shelby E. Carpenter | Trust-Building in Post-Conflict West Africa: Urban Hunting Societies in Sierra Leone And The Gambia | May 2011 | Adjunct Professor, Roger Williams University |
| Navid Fozi-Abivard | An Alternative Religious Space In Shi’a Iran: Socio-Cultural Imaginaries Of Zoroastrians In Contemporary Tehran | May 2011 | Assistant Professor, Anthropology, Bridgewater State University |
| Sarah A. Tobin | Everyday Piety: Negotiating Islam and the Economy in Amman, Jordan | May 2011 | Research Director, Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI), University of Bergen |
| Jinba Danzeng | In the Heartland of the Eastern Queendom: Marginalities and Identities on the Han-Tibetan Border | January 2011 | Associate Professor, National University of Singapore, Dept of Sociology. |
| Nicole (Nic) Hayes | Unequal Partners: Sex, Money, Power, and HIV/AIDS in Southern Malawian Relationships | January 2011 | Research affiliate/Adjunct, University of Waterloo (Canada) |
| Leonardo Schiocchet | Refugee Lives: Ritual and Belonging in Two Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon | January 2011 | Senior Researcher, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Social Anthropology. |
| Noah Coburn | Potters and warlords in an Afghan bazaar: Political mobilization, masterly inactivity and violence in post -Taliban Afghanistan | May 2010 | Provost, Goddard College |
| Christopher Annear | Weathering the commons : resilience and heterogeneity in an inland fishery, Mweru-Luapula, Zambia | January 2010 | Associate Professor of Anthropology, Hobart and William Smith Colleges |
| Todd French | “Like leaves fallen by wind”: Resilience, remembrance, and the restoration of landscapes in central Mozambique | May 2009 | History Teacher, Sturgis Chater Public School |
| Lindsay Gifford | Nashta: Rotating credit associations and women “being active” in Syria | May 2009 | Research Faculty, University of Chicago |
| Denise Gulliot | Measures of Postural and Locomotor Performance in Wild Ateline Primates: A Comparative Analysis of Alouatta Seniculus, Lagothrix Poeppigii, and Ateles Belzebuth | May 2009 | Academic Advisor, University of Michigan |
| Susan Costello | Choices and Changes in Tribal and Buddhist Moral Economies in Golok, a Pastoral Tibetan Area | January 2009 | Project Analyst, Resonance Insights |
| Rob Fredericksen | Construction of the Future among Young Gay-Identified Men: Relationship to Gay Male Cultural Norms and Health | January 2009 | Acting Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, University of Washington |
| Rachel Hall-Clifford | Oral Rehydration Therapy in Highland Guatemala: Long-Term Impacts of Public Health Intervention on the Self | January 2009 | Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Public Health, Emory University |
| Eleanor Shoreman | Regulation, Conservation and Collaboration: Ecological Anthropology in the Mississippi Delta | January 2009 | Assistant Professor In Residence, University of Conneticut |
| Elizabeth Walters | Everyday Islam in New England | January 2008 | Clinical Director, Medical Non-Profit |
| Asli Baykal | Surviving the post-Soviet transition: Changing family and community relations in urban Uzbekistan | May 2007 | Psychotherapist |
| Laurie LaPorte | The continuities of modernity: Cape Verdean identity and emigration | May 2007 | Lecturer, Metropolitan College, Boston University |
| Keping Wu | Channeling Charisma: Leadership, Community and Ritual of a Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group in the United States | May 2007 | Associate Professor, Duke-Kunshan University |
| Christal Whelan | Religious responses to globalization in Japan: the case of the God Light Association | January 2007 | Writer, Lecturer, and Translator |
| Ahmet Yukleyen | The European market for Islam: Turkish Islamic communities and organization in Germany and the Netherlands | January 2007 | Associate Professor of Anthropology and International Studies, University of Mississippi |
| Elizabeth (Liz) Chettur | Social Hierarchy and Globalization: A Study of Shifting Interpretations of Socal Prestige | May 2006 | Freelance Writer |
| Steven Thomson | Children of the village: peace and local citizenship in a multiethnic Gambian community | January 2006 | Lean Specialist, Washington State Auditor’s Office |
| Sumanto Al Qurtuby | Interreligious Violence, Civic Peace, and Citizenship: Christians and Muslims in Maluku, Eastern Indonesia | 2013 | Professor of Anthropology & Director of Nusantara Institute at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals |
| Brady A. Cusick | Higher education: the motivation, organization, and socialization of Japanese college student volunteers | 2005 | Adjunct Lecturer of Strategic Studies, Johns Hopkins University |
| Linda Learman | Modernity, marriage, and religion: Buddhist marriages in Taiwan | 2005 | Analyst, US Navy |
| William Lukas | The physiological ecology of steroid hormones in Turkana and Zimbabwean men | 2004 | |
| Yasime L. Ziesler | Becoming Korean and American: a microethnography of Korean children’s socialization in an American preschool | 2004 | Chief Academic Officer, Vermont State Colleges System |
| Derick Fay | The trust is over! We want to plough”: land, livelihoods and reverse resettlement in South Africa’s Transkei | 2003 | Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of California Riverside |
| Lillian Frejacques | Identity and belonging: ethic formation processes amongst the Karaiyu/Oromo of the Central Awash Valley, Ethiopia | 2003 | |
| Beth Anne Pratt | Childhood, space and children “out of place”: versions of Maasai childhood in Monduli Juu, Tanzania | 2003 | Consultant and Partner, Global Health Insights |
| Paulo Pinto | Mystical bodies: ritual, experience and the embodiment of Sufism in Syria | 2002 | Associate Professor of Anthropology, Universidade Federal Fluminense |
| Manjari Wijenaike | Enterprising culture: middle class women’s businesses in Sri Lanka | 2002 | Education, Grants, and Evaluation Consultant |
| Chien-Yu Julia Huang | Recapturing charisma: emotion and rationalization in a globalizing Buddhist movement from Taiwan | 2001 | Professor of Anthropology, National Tsing Hua University |
| Michael Sheridan | Cooling the land: the political ecology of the North Pare Mountains, Tanzania | 2001 | Professor of Anthropology, Middlebury College |
| Teferi Abate Adem | Government intervention and socioeconomic change in a northeast Ethiopian community: an anthropological study | 2000 | Research Anthropologist, Human Relations Area Files, Yale University |
| Chang-Hui Chi | The politics of deification and nationalist ideology: a case study of Quemoy | 2000 | Associate Professor, National Quemoy University |
| Alanna Cooper | Negotiating identity in the context of diaspora, dispersion and reunion: the Bukharan Jews and Jewish peoplehood | 2000 | Assistant Professor, Department of Religious Studies, Abba Hillel Silver Chair in Jewish Studies, Case Western Reserve University |
| James Igoe | Ethnicity, civil society, and the Tanzanian pastoral NGO movement: The continuities and discontinuities of liberalized development | 2000 | Professor of Anthropology, University of Virgina |
| Amalia Sa’ar | Girls” and “women”: femininity and social adulthood among unmarried Israeli-Palestinian women | 2000 | Assistant Professor and Chair of Anthropology, University of Haifa |
| Mimi Ye-Wo Wan | The secrets to success: change and continuity in the gari trade of Ibadan, Nigeria, 1992-1994 | 2000 | Lecturer, Northeastern University |
| Anita Fabos | Ambiguous ethnicity: propriety (adab) as a situational boundary marker for northern Sudanese in Cairo | 1999 | Professor of International Development and Social Change, Clark University |
| Simon Heck | In the presence of neighbors: land, property, and community in Ankole, Uganda | 1998 | Program Leader, International Potato Center |