Recent Graduates in Anthropology
The goal of our graduate program is to prepare students for the next level. What that next level is depends on the student, what their goals were, and how they designed their graduate program. One of the strengths of our program is that it allows students to tailor their course-work, internships, fellowships, field experiences, and theses topics to place them where they want to go. As you can see below, some in the Professional Archaeology track gained immediate employment in the CRM industry while others are continuing their education by entering doctoral programs in a variety of first-rate institutions.
Congratulations Spring 2009 Graduates!
- Joseph Bakura
- Emily Smith
- Amberley Runge
- Traci Golding
- Adam Hottovy
- Jessica Cerny
- Allison Formanack
- Jared Bragg
- Laura McClatchey
- Geri Knight
- Joshua Alvarez
- Danielle Ayriss
Graduating Seniors
Emily Smith
will graduate with a B.A. in anthropology in May 2009. She has presented her Year II UCARE poster at the UNL research fair, and received a Champe-Weekly award for oral presentation at the Society for Applied Anthropology, Sante Fe, New Mexico. She has also received the McGinnis Award for the best undergraduate presentation for anthropology at the Nebraska Academy of Sciences. She has been accepted into "Teach for America," and has received placement as a chemistry teacher in Minneapolis as she applies to combined to MD/MPH or MA programs.
Recent Undergraduate Students
Brad Kindler
BA Anthropology, Assistant Director for Community CROPS (Combining Resources, Opportunities and People for Sustainability). CROPS works on a variety of projects to help immigrants and refugees begin farming in the Southeast Nebraska area. Brad works with all aspects of the project, including the gardens and farms. He also works with young people as part of the Urban Youth Agricultural Initiative.
Krystal Teixeira
graduated from UNL in spring 2007 with a BA in anthropology and is pursuing an MA in forensic anthropology at Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas.
Jenny McCollough
graduated with a B.A. in anthropology from UNL in December 2006. She is pursuing a master's degree in the Museum Studies Program, Anthropology Track, at Kansas University in Lawrence, Kansas. Jenny has been hired as the Archivist at the Clinton Lake Museum at Baker University in Baldwin, Kansas. She is happy to talk to other UNL students about KU's museum studies program.
Emily Sorrell
graduated in the fall of 2006 with a BA in anthropology and a minor in Spanish. She was admitted to the University of Nebraska Medical Center (Omaha) and is currently pursuing a medical degree along with a masters of public health (the latter to satisfy her love of anthropology).
Ryan Schacht
graduated from UNL in spring 2006 with a BS degree, majoring in Anthropology and minoring in biological sciences and psychology. Ryan is now a Ph.D. student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California at Davis and will conduct field work in Guyana on attractiveness.
Rachel Dellovechio
graduated in spring 2006 with an BA in anthropology and is currently working on a master's program in forensic anthropology at Witchita State University.
Stephanie Beran
graduated in spring 2006 with a BA in anthropology and is currently in law school at the University of Nebraska Lincoln.
Roshan Badakhsh
graduated from UNL in spring 2005 with a BS, majoring in Anthropology and minoring in Chemistry. She completed an MPH program at Tulane University in New Orleans in August 2007. She survived Hurricane Katrina, earned the masters of public health, and is currently working for the Louisiana Office of Public Health Section of Environmental Epidemiology.
Recent Graduate Students
Samantha L. Kirkley
Graduated with an M.A. in Anthropology, Spring 2008. Her thesis, titled "In Small Things Unnoticed: an Interpretation of 19th century Ironstone Maker's Marks" examines the ways in which something as simple and often unnoticed as a maker's mark can convey powerful messages about social, economic, and political change. Currently, Samantha is employed with P-III Associates, Inc., Archaeologists and Historians, in Utah engaging in Cultural Resource Management (http://www.p-iii.com/html/profile.html).
Michaela S. Clemens
graduated with an M.A. in the spring of 2007. Thesis: Long-Term Refugees and Short-Sighted Health Strategies. She is currently the Project Director for the Tema Eye Survey (TES) in Tema, Ghana. TES is an epidemiological study examining the prevalence of eye diseases in this region of West Africa. The project is funded by International Aid and the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute of the University of Miami. Michaela also recently published in Practicing Anthropology. The article can be read here.
Brennan Dolan
is a summer 2007 graduate who received a Masters degree from the Professional Archaeology program. His thesis is titled Exploring Okoboji Oneota: Analysis and Regional Comparison of Faunal Data from Gillett Grove (13CY2), Clay County, Iowa. He is an archaeologist for the Midwest office of the Louis Berger Group, Inc., located in Marion, Iowa. He is in charge of overseeing archaeological projects. He is responsible for supervising archaeological survey and site evaluation, including background research, field investigation, materials analysis, and preparation of written reports. His professional interests include faunal analysis (especially diversity studies), ceremony, and historic preservation awareness.
Benjamin Purzycki
graduated with an MA in the summer of 2006 and now is in the doctoral program at the University of Connecticut where he studies the evolutionary psychology of religion and the evolution of religious behavior. In the summer of 2008, he was awarded full funding from Oxford University's Cognition, Religion, and Theology Project to conduct his dissertation fieldwork in the Tuva Republic where he will study the socioecological factors involved in the sacralization of land.
Carl McCabe
anthropology doctoral program (behavioral ecology), University of California-Davis. Thesis: Ye'kwana Meal Sharing (August 2004). Carl received a graduate teaching fellowship and has entered one of the top ecological and behavioral ecological programs in the country. He began by doing field work with Bruce Winterhalder on pinyon nut harvesting strategies of Native Americans. Currently, he is preparing to travel to China on a Wenner Gren grant to test some ideas in experimental economics among vendors in city markets. He just published part of his UN-L thesis in with his Nebraska thesis advisor: Hames, R. and C. McCabe "Meal Sharing among the Ye'kwana" Human Nature 18 (1):1-22 (2007).
Kyle Gibson
Graduated with an M.A. in 2004 (thesis: Relatedness and Investment in Adoptive Households). He is currently working on his Ph.D. in human evolutionary ecology at the University of Utah. His dissertation research is on suicide terrorism and the motivations people have in volunteering for suicide missions. Kristen Hawkes (chair), Henry Harpending, Elizabeth Cashdan and Doug Jones sit on his committee. He currently teaches a class called Human Universals at the University of Utah. Kyle recently had a paper entitled "Differential Parental Investment in Families with Both Adopted and Genetic Children" accepted for publication in Evolution and Human Behavior. This exciting work is based on masters thesis in our program under Raymond Hames and Patricia Draper and will be published this year.
Carl Carlson-Drexler
Anthropology (Historical Archaeology) program at the College of William & Mary. Thesis: Identifying Culturally-Based Variability in Artillery Ammunition Fragments Recovered from the Battlefield of Pea Ridge, Arkansas. Carl is currently working on an antebellum ferry crossing site on the Red River in southwest Arkansas that was an important transportation facility up through the Civil War, and is using both conflict and global exchange as analytical foci in the interpretation.
Katie Cleek
anthropology doctoral program (archaeology) University of Arkansas. Thesis: Transportation, Material Culture, and the Archaeological Record: A comparison between the Sarah Cook House and the E. S. Hayhurst House (June 2004).
Alicia Coles
anthropology doctoral program (underwater archaeology) University of Rhode Island. Thesis: Fort William in Context: Independent Post Versus Outstructure of Fort Union (August 2004). There she is working with Robert Ballard, the underwater explorer who discovered the Titanic. Her activities and multidisciplinary doctoral program combining archaeology and oceanography are highlighted here in MSNBC.
Amy Bleier
Staff Archaeologist, Metcalf Archaeological Consultants, Inc. Bismarck, ND. Thesis: Dating Woodcliff (25SD31): Insights into Pawnee Archaeology. (Professional Archaeology MA, June 2004) Amy is managing a variety of archaeological projects for Metcalf Archaeological Consultants, Inc. in their Bismarck, North Dakota office.
Damita Hiemstra
Staff Archaeologist, Metcalf Archaeological Consultants, Inc. Bismarck, ND. Thesis: Pull of the Hills? : An Examination of Prehistoric Land Use on the Great Plains, Along the Southern Margin of the South Dakota Black Hills (Professional Archaeology MA December 2003). Damita is managing a variety of archaeological projects for Metcalf Archaeological Consultants, Inc. in their Bismarck, North Dakota office.
Clea Koff, M.A., 2000
Clea recently published The Bone Woman: A Forensic Anthropologist' Search for Truth in the Graves of Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo. Her work was profiled 1 May in the New York Times and she is doing a book tour through her publisher Random House. Click here to visit Clea's homepage http://thebonewoman.com/ and here http://www.randomhouse.com/ for a synopsis of her work at the Random House web site.
Erin Kimmerle, M.A., 1999
Erin Kimmerele is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of South Florida. Her department profile can be viewed online. Erin graduated from our program with her masters degree in 1999 and entered the internationally respected forensic anthropology program at the University of Tennessee to pursue her doctorate. Prior to entering our department and during her doctoral work at Tennessee Erin had extensive experience in Kosovo and elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia excavating mass graves for the United Nations. In 2003 she became a fellow for the Committee for Human Rights of the American Anthropological Association. As Chief Anthropologist for the forensic team of the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Kimmerle led the 2000 and 2001 field missions in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. Using this case, Kimmerle prepared a report for the CfHR website on the role of anthropology in analyzing physical evidence of war crimes and genocide entitled "Cause of Death: The Role of Anthropology in the Enforcement of Human Rights" published on the Association's web site: http://www.aaanet.org/committees/cfhr/rpt_kimmerle.htm.
Kirby Moss, M.A., 1997
Kirby received his doctorate at the University of Texas in 2001 as is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Colorado at Boulder. He just published The Color of Class: Poor Whites and the Paradox of Privilege through the University of Pennsylvania Press. His homepage is http://www.colorado.edu/journalism/faculty/bios/moss.html.
