Winter 2022
MESSAGE FROM OUR CHAIR
Dear Alumni and Friends,
As COVID seemingly releases its hold on us and then grips us again, our daily operations and interactions with students and each other still feel a few steps removed from normal. Despite these challenges, the Department continues to generate top-quality research, opportunities for student engagement, and welcoming and thought-provoking classes. I remain confident that the perspectives and work described in the newsletter showcase the enduring significance of Anthropology and Geography. This year, we celebrated Dr. Kate Browne's incredible career, as she enters a new phase as an emeritus professor and Dr. Ed Henry - recipent of the 2021 C. B. Moore Award, conferred by the Southeastern U.S. archaeology community. We also continued the international work many of our faculty and students are known for - please read about Dr. Diego Pons and his work with farmers in Guatemala and the Fulbright Dr. Steve Leisz was awarded for his research and collaboration in Vietnam. I hope you enjoy reading about what we have been up to, and I am looking forward to seeing you all in the near future.
With best wishes,
Mica Glantz
DEPARTMENT HIGHLIGHTS
Recognizing Kate Browne: “What lights you up?”
Following a 27-year career at Colorado State University, University Distinguished Professor Kate Browne retired this past May. Among her many accolades, Browne was named recipient of the Franz Boas Award, the highest award conferred by the American Anthropological Association. Browne also conceived and organized the CSU Ethnographic Field School for Risk and Disaster -- the nation's first such program for undergrads -- which she directed in Summer 2019 on the Texas Gulf Coast.
READ MORE A profile and reflection on Browne and her legacy
Pons Tackles Climate Solutions in Guatemala
Climate change has been linked as a cause for mass migrations from Guatemala and Central America. Assistant Professor Diego Pons wants to make large-scale climate science work for local farms and communities facing tough decisions.
READ MORE about Pons' research and innovative "climate services" tools
Anthropology students help recover WWII remains
This past fall, Anthropology and Geography doctoral students and undergrad volunteers took part in a fascinating archaeological survey in northern France to help bring home the remains of a U.S. World War II pilot. Ray Sumner, Anthropology Ph.D. candidate and retired Army Lt. Colonel served as project manager and team leader for the mission, led by the CSU Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands in conjunction with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency and the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.
READ MORE about the project via CSU SOURCE
Henry Wins Top Southeastern Archaeology Award
Assistant Professor Edward Henry has won the 2021 C.B. Moore Award from the Southeastern Archeological Conference. The C.B. Moore Award annually recognizes a preeminent young scholar in the field of Southeastern United States archaeology. Henry specializes in geoarchaeology to recognize and analyze human and natural changes to land that occurred centuries and even millennia ago.
READ MORE about Henry's award and research
UPCOMING EVENTS
February 28 Anthropology and Geography Seminar Series: CSU Geospatial Centroid Road Show
Lory Student Center 304-306, 2:00-3:00pm. Open to the public
April 8 Anthropology and Geography Seminar Series: Zack Throckmorton, Ph.D., Medical Human Anatomy Director and Associate Professor at the Colorado University School of Medicine/ Colorado State University
Clark Building A205. Open to the public. Reception to follow
April 29 Anthropology and Geography Seminar Series: Ather Zia, Ph.D., Department of Anthropology and Gender Studies, Univeristy of Northern Colorado,
Lory Student Center 322, 4-5pm. Open to the public
May 13 Spring 2022 Commencement
For more details and new events, visit our homepage
MORE NEWS & ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Leisz Wins Fulbright and Bound for Vietnam
Geography Professor Stephen Leisz has won a Fulbright Scholar Award to study the impacts of environmental, social and economic changes in Vietnam and to collaborate with peers in 2022.
Guatemala Climate Scientists Train at CSU
Guatemala meteorological service technicians completed a weeklong training with Dr. Diego Pons this fall at CSU to support improved climate modeling for the country.
Paleontology Field School Rides Again
After a 2020 virtual program, Prof. Kim Nichols and Dr. Tom Bown and undergraduate students resumed field research and fossil prospecting in the Wyoming badlands in Summer 2021.
Furthering Perspectives Journal Published
Volume 10 of Furthering Perspectives: Anthropological Views of the World, the journal of the Anthropology Graduate Student Society was published Spring 2021.
Shirley Mitchell: How Apes Reveal Human History
Doctoral student Mary Shirley Mitchell writes that Great apes provide a window into the human-evolution story — and that’s one more reason to protect them.
READ MORE via SAPIENS
Producing Museum Exhibits
Students in the Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies Certificate gain knowledge and practice in exhibit curation and design while exploring anthropology topics.
WATCH VIDEO by RamProductions
Ph.D. Candidate Wins Leakey Foundation Fellowship
Tewabe Negash Kassaw has been awarded a prestigious Baldwin Fellowship from the Leakey Foundation for graduate studies in human origins.
READ MORE via Leakey Foundation
Pelissero Levels Up with AJBA Video Game Review
Ph.D. student Alex Pelissero published a well-qualified review of the role-playing, hominid-survival game, Ancestors, in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology.
SELECTED FACULTY RESEARCH & ENGAGEMENT
Heidi Hausermann
- Associate Professor
Prof. Heidi Hausermann has won a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship as a Co-PI, with Megan Baumann, for the proposal, "Infrastructures of disease: Rural water megaprojects and uneven health impacts in Colombia"
Chris Fisher
- Professor
Prof. Chris Fisher and Prof. Steve Leisz organized and led the Earth Archive Congress in June 2021, a two-day summit to address the state of digital mapping in the Amazon region among archaeologists, geographers, and others
Jeffrey G. Snodgrass
- Professor
Prof. Jeffrey Snodgrass won a grant from Foundation for Psychocultural Research, for the proposal, “Online Gaming Involvement, Avatar Identification, and Emotion Regulation in Five Culture Areas"
Andrew Du
- Assistant Professor
- Undergraduate Coordinator
Prof. Andrew Du has earned National Science Foundation, Archaeology funding for the proposal, "Examining the relationship between an increasingly carnivorous Homo erectus and Pleistocene mammal extinctions, as a Co-PI.
Keep up with faculty research, publications, grants & speaking engagements
at our Department Scholarship page
STUDENT NEWS & ACHIEVEMENTS
FALL 2021
- Celebrate our Fall 2021 graduating class, including our largest ever group of Geography majors! Watch here
- CSU Human Resources Specialist Shelly Lynch earned her Anthropology B.A. by completing her degree one to two courses each semester over roughly seven years. Read more
- At the 2021 Plains Archaeology Conference, Ph.D candidate Kelton Meyer won an award for the Graduate Student Poster Competition, presenting on his dissertation research, "Countryside Folsom in the San Luis Valley, Colorado: Revisiting the Reddin Site." Undergraduate major Riley Limbaugh won an award for the Undergraduate Student Poster Competition sharing his work, "The Days After Colorado's Darkest Days: Using Weapons and Ammunition to Date Conflicts and Identify Participants in Battle." Meyer also won the Eugene Eisenbarth and Dorothy Mountain scholarships from the Loveland Archaeological Society in 2021.
- Stephen Young, a Biological Anthropology major and member of the Mountain Maidu tribe in northern California, was featured in the Rocky Mountain Collegian for his work toward reviving traditional basket weaving. Young draws inspiration from anthropology as he seeks to build and strengthen connections among his people and culture. See Collegian photoessay
- The 2020 Archaeological Field School and the CSU Claim Building Excavation and Project, led by Professors Mary Van Buren and Edward Henry, was a finalist for the 2022 People's Choice Stephen H. Hart Award for Historic Preservation through History Colorado
SPRING/ SUMMER 2021
- Celebrate our Spring 2021 and Summer 2021 graduating students! Watch here
- Doctoral candidate Ray Sumner, master's student Kimberly Biela, and undergrads Matthew Fuerst and Haley Johnson won 2021 Colorado Archaeological Society's Alice Hamilton Scholarship Awards to support fieldwork, research, and participation in field schools
- Our April 2021 panel discussion, Anth to the People! brought together CSU Anthropology and Geography faculty, students, and alumni speaking to speak about public anthropology and anthropology as practice for engagement, outreach, education and social change. Watch here
- At the Spring 2021 Celebrate Undergraduate Research and Creativity (CURC) Showcase, Jared Grove, a Geography major, won the College of Liberal Arts Honors Award for his poster, “Is climate change resulting in wildfires burning areas that normally don’t burn?” Amanda Kowalski, an Anthropology and Geography double major, was one of two overall First Place award winners for best Oral Presentation for her research, titled “Influence of wildfire management on burn mosaic heterogeneity and post-fire regeneration in Colorado spruce-fir forests.”
