In addition to teaching, our 10 full-time faculty have extensive research and service experience, representing the fields of archeology, biological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and sociocultural anthropology in diverse cultural settings including the Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Malaysia, Oman, the Philippines, Senegal, Turkey, the United States, and Yemen.
We maintain one of the highest standards of research productivity in the College. Our faculty members have been awarded 5 of the scholar of the year awards (junior and senior levels) given by the College of Arts & Sciences in the past 27 years.
The faculty are engaged in various research activities and have been recipients of numerous fellowships and grants (i.e. American Philosophical Society, National Geographic Society, L.S.B. Leakey Foundation, National Science Foundation, Fulbright-Hays, Fulbright, American Institute of Indian Studies, Clio Foundation, and Princeton University-Program in Latin American Studies.
To learn more about the research of our faculty, please visit the Faculty Profiles.
Research Clusters
Colonialism, Politics, Violence
When we observe different armed conflicts and political struggles across the globe, can we grasp what moves people to action? How and why do people risk their lives in the name of an idea or cause?
Magic, Science, Modernity
What is modernity? Where is the boundary between "science" and what has been known for millennia as "magic"?
Health, Development, Environment
Relationships among humans, non-humans, and their environments leave significant traces in our bodies, cultures, and landscapes. How can we begin to understand the complex ways that a group's sense of well-being is cultivated -- or threatened -- through specific projects of medicine, economy, conservation, or industry?
Meaning, Materiality, Media
How do we create meaning? Where is it? How do we as a human community or as individuals, recognize it? How do we change it?
Student Involvement
Each faculty member welcomes the chance to provide individual career advising and instruction to students, who are encouraged to speak with faculty members about research/internship possibilities.
Here are a few areas in which students may want to pursue these opportunities:
- Summer archaeological field school in western North Carolina or elsewhere in the Eastern United States
- Summer ethnographic field school in the Ecuadorian Amazon
- Summer ethnographic field school in Appalachia
- Summer Appalachian Studies and anthropology program in Wales
- Internships with a variety of service agencies and archeological projects, e.g. Appalachian Voices (environment); High Country Amigos (hispanics); Laboratories of Archeological Science; Sustainable Communities Coordinator; Legal Services of the Blue Ridge; Watauga Medical Center Forensic Pathology Lab; Hunger Coalition; Appalachian Cultural Museum; Student Action with Farmworkers, English as a Second Language, etc.