About us
The Anthropology Department offers the PhD degree. The department includes 20 faculty with active research programs in archaeology, biological and cultural anthropology. The goal of our graduate program is to train leaders in the field. To achieve this goal, our program emphasizes rigorous training in theory and its application, as well as the development of skills in state of the art methodologies required to advance knowledge in the discipline.
We offer a strong mentoring environment which includes opportunities for students to work directly with our faculty at established field sites across the globe. The high level of training and strong mentorship has resulted in an excellent placement rate with 78% of our PhD graduates securing positions at academic institutions.
Faculty members work with past, as well as living human and primate populations to address a broad range of research questions. Central themes that guide faculty research include:
- social-ecological systems
- human evolutionary history
- biocultural approaches to health
- medical anthropology
- primatology
- human migration
The department has excellent laboratory facilities where hands-on training in archaeology, zooarchaeology, bioarchaeology, skeletal biology (human and primate), human biology, paleoethnobotany, archaeological isotope analysis, GIS and ethnographic methods are offered. In addition, most of our faculty members engage in interdisciplinary projects and we encourage our students to take advantage of the top-notch research and training opportunities available across campus.