Sydney Garcia
K.T. Hanson
Erik Hendrickson
Hailee Hove
Jose Huizar
David Hyde
Samuel Katzman
Sonia Khachikians
Sandra Kirkwood
Sam Kobari
Cassandra Krum
Alexander Lynes
Julia Martinez
Matt Maxfeldt
Nadia Merino Chavez
Keshia Montifolca
Brett Moore
Olea Morris

Ben Nugent
Jeff Peterson
Mike Prouty
Barbara Quimby
Colin Reimer
Stephen Rochester
Linda Sanchez
Savanna Schuermann
John Spotts
Sean Tangco
Elizabeth Thompson
Carlos Vega
Tiffany Wade
Lynn Merrill Weyman
Charles Whitney
Brenda Wills
Lang Yin
Alison Zak

Home
Officers
Graduate Profiles
Bylaws
Calendar of Events

Erin Blankenship-Sefczek
Maggie David
Amanda Ellwanger
Shelby Gunderman
Elizabeth Herlihy
Douglas Joseph La Rose
Wendy Leicht

AGSA Blog
AGSA on Facebook

GET INVOLVED
Find out what's happening
with AGSA on the Calendar
of Events

Annika Adamson
forswornlove@yahoo.com

Annika received her BA in Anthropology from San Francisco State University in 2008. She is now working on her Masters in Anthropology at San Diego State. Her focus is Cultural Anthropology and her interests are binational identity, youth and gender studies.

Back to top

Trudi Andres
trudiandres@yahoo.com
Trudi received her Bachelor's Degree in anthropology from California State University San Marcos in 2008. She is now pursuing her Masters Degree at SDSU with a focus on Applied Anthropology. Her research interests lay with refugee communities and resettlement.

Back to top

Jessica Bates
jbates@rohan.sdsu.edu
Jessica received her BA from Chapman University in psychology and is currently pursuing her MA in cultural anthropology. She has conducted research in the Valley of Oaxaca on microcredit and transnational migration, and is currently exploring how both are used as strategies for economic diversification within the family. Her thesis will revolve around how narratives about both economic strategies display a fluidity in communal identity in terms of traditional lifestyles and participation in more global economies, as well as how economic diversification functions at the local level for a transnational community. Her more general interests include identity, narrative, power, migration, postcolonial studies, globalization, and linguistics. Jessica previously coordinated the Education Outreach Program for Collections Management at SDSU.
Back to top

Riley Buehler
buehler@rohan.sdsu.edu
Riley earned her BA in anthropology from UCLA in 2009 and began progress toward her MA in anthropology at SDSU in 2011.  With a background primarily in biological archaeology, her current focus is in environmental anthropology with research interests in community gardening, agriculture, land use, wilderness, and conservation.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/riley-buehler/3a/aa5/855
Back to top

Velma V. Calvario Tlahuancapa
Velma V. Calvario Tlahuancapa is pursuing a graduate study leading to the Masters of Arts in Applied Anthropology with an emphasis in Cultural Anthropology. She desires to be an indigenous socio-cultural anthropologist who collaborates with the Nahuas of the low mountain region of Guerrero, Mexico in a lifetime effort towards language reclamation and revitalization. Her interest is not only anthropological, but also deeply personal because she is a member of a Nahua community from the region. Her thesis research will look at the endangered Nahuatl language in the lower mountain region of Guerrero and explore the current effort of indigenous teachers
to empower a Nahua identity in order to maintain, reclaim and revitalize their language. Her research looks at the call by Nahuatl teachers for the reclamation and revitalization of the language through literature and the arts in which Nahuatl is argued not only acquires a linguistic, artistic, and literary value, but also empowers a Nahua identity that serves as a defense for the language. Her research is in the works of rendering a hopeful possibility towards language reclamation/revitalization.
Back to top

Breana Campbell
campbe13@rohan.sdsu.edu
Breana earned her BA in Anthropology and History from San Diego State University in 2010 and began work on her MA in 2012. Her research interests include historical ecology, prehistoric coastal settlements, and the peopling of the New World. Breana is currently working on human impacts on shellfish taxa and the settlement and rise of complexity on the Channel Islands.

Back to top

Elena Carver
ecarver@rohan.sdsu.edu
Elena holds a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Washington (2008), and is currently focusing on a combination of biological and cultural anthropology. She is primarily interested in primate behavior, evolutionary biology, and the interface between humans and non-human primates in a captive setting.

Back to top

Kathy Collins
kathycdesigns@aim.com
Kathy holds a Bachelor's Degree in product design from Pratt Institute.
She is now pursuing her Master's Degree at SDSU with a focus on
Historical Archaeology. Her research interests include southwestern and historical California archaeology.

Back to top

 

Celina Corona-Romero
leonelacr88@yahoo.com
Celina studied Anthropology and Women's and Gender Studies as an undergraduate at Sonoma State University. Her subfield is cultural anthropology.
Her interests in anthropology are: cultural anthropology on the Applied anthropology track, gender issues, Latin American communities, representation, concepts of identity, etc.

Back to top

Jules Downum
downum@rohan.sdsu.edu
Jules is studying sociocultural anthropology. She is particularly interested in the role of dance in cultural identity formation and would like to research the application of dance as a tool in identity negotiation.

Back to top

Rachel Droessler
droesslerr@gmail.com
Rachel Droessler received her BS is Anthropology with a secondary emphasis in Spanish from Juniata College in 2010. She is now pursuing her Masters Degree at San Diego State University with an emphasis in Historical Archaeology. Her interests include the historical archaeology of San Diego, household archaeology, and historical faunal remains.

Back to top

 

Erin Durbin-Sherer
littleamelie@hotmail.com
Erin is a third-year Cultural Anthropology grad student at SDSU, where she also got her BA in Anthropology in 2008. She is interested in identity construction and political and sexual anthropology. Her current research project is about young men and their attitudes toward gender equality and feminism.
"...she's a force for change as opposed to the status quo." -Peter Chung
Back to top

Elizabeth Eklund
felisbieti@juno.com
Elizabeth Eklund is a graduate student in anthropology at San Diego State University. Her research interests are in the intersection of people and nature. She received her B.S. in environmental sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, minoring in anthropology and environmental economics and policy. She went on to receive a master of science in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville where she studied how natural and cultural resources are preserved in the United States National Park and National Forest Systems, focusing on how are protected areas are established and what this means for local people. Her current research is on the international framework for establishing protected areas with a particular focus on Natural Protected Areas in Baja California Sur.

Back to top

Elyssa Figari
efigari@gmail.com
Elyssa received her BA in archaeology from Willamette University, Oregon in 2005. Prior to beginning her graduate studies at SDSU in 2011, she participated on rock art expeditions in Italy and Egypt, held the position of Archaeological Collections Manager at the Museum of the American Indian in northern California, and worked for several cultural resource management (CRM) firms. She is currently employed as an environmental planner at Kleinfelder, an engineering and environmental consulting firm. Elyssa's research interests include museums, collections management, and prehistoric archaeology.
Back to top

Alejandra Flores
alejandraf84@gmail.com
Alejandra is a cultural anthropologist. She hopes to do her research in Hawaii, the Big Island, and the so-called 'hippie' culture and more specifically, the farmer's market. She would like to look at the culture, the reasons for re-location to Hawaii, and what this means for us today in a time of GMOs, global warming, and the commoditization of all things having to do with 'going green'.

Back to top

Marco Flores
marcolicious@gmail.com
Marco holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Linguistics from the University of California, Davis (2004) and a diploma in Hispanic Studies from the University of Salamanca, Spain (2002). He is currently pursuing a Masters in Anthropology from San Diego State University with a focus in Linguistic Anthropology. His research interests include: identity studies, gender, sexuality, queer anthropology, LGBT communities, Fat studies, Jotería, ethnolinguistics, semiotics, and education. His current research investigates how masculinity is embodied in the Bear identity, a gay male subculture, and expressed through semiotics.
Back to top

Tekara Gainey
Tekarag@gmail.com
Tekara received her B.A in Anthropology from Temple University. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Applied Anthropology with an emphasis in Medical Anthropology. After previously working as a sexual health educator and currently as a birth and abortion Doula, Tekara gained an interest in health disparities and the biomedicalization of sexual health and childbirth.  A Birth Junkie at heart,  her research interests include childbirth practices, traditions, and rituals across cultures, cultural resistance and resilience through birthing practices, authoritative knowledge. Tekara also has interests in patient/provider communication, discourse surrounding LGBTQ sexual health, and public health initiatives.
Back to top

Sydney Garcia
sydney0117@gmail.com
Sydney received her BA in anthropology from San Diego State University in 2011. During her service in the Marine Corps, she constantly heard about fallen service members still waiting to be identified, and felt she would be able to help those that came before her. Her graduate student focus is in biological anthropology. Sydney’s interests include bioarchaeology, forensic anthropology, skeletal biology, human rights, evidence of violence and trauma in human remains, and the development of “race” and it’s impact on our society both inter and intrapopulations.

Back to top.

K.T. Hanson
kth621@gmail.com
K.T. is a biological anthropologist with an emphasis in primatology. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in May 2011 with a B.A. in Anthropology, and is currently pursuing a M.A. in Biological Anthropology at SDSU. As an undergraduate, she spent her summers conducting independent field research on the Barbary macaques of Gibraltar. K.T.’s current research interests include mating strategies and subsequent parental care behavior, the development of and capacity for empathy in nonhuman primates as it relates to the evolution of human behavior, and ethnoprimatology; specifically, the scientific and ethical dilemmas associated with habituation of nonhuman primate species, how tourism/ecotourism impacts primate populations, and conservation issues posed by pet and bushmeat trades. When not in the field chasing monkeys, you can usually find her drinking iced coffee and searching for the perfect puppy to adopt!
Back to top

Erik Hendrickson
erikhendrickson8@gmail.com
Erik received his BA from the University of California at Santa Cruz in cultural anthropology in 2007. He is currently pursuing a Masters in Applied Anthropology with a focus on Medical and Public Health Anthropology. As a product of his applied project creating an Aquaponics system, his thesis research looks into the ways that physical health and diet are perceived by institutionalized unaccompanied minors and their caregivers using mixed method approaches. Other research interests of his are globalized health, the history of medicinal and public health thought, epistemology, bioethics, subjectivity, and semiotics.
Back to top

Hailee Hove
hailee.hove@gmail.com
Hailee received her BA in Anthropology from San Diego State in 2009. She began the graduate program with an interest in primatology, biology, evolutionary anthropology and behavioral ecology with a specific focus in primate communication and behavior. In her own personal evolution, she decided to branch out to cultural anthropology, fascinated by modern human communication and the effects of the internet on communication and relationship formation. Her thesis research focuses on the perceptions and experiences of stigma in online dating communities. Since online dating is a rapidly growing phenomenon, her research targets the experience of disclosure and what it feels like to admit that an individual is using the internet to find a potential partner. 
Back to top

Jose Huizar
huizar55@gmail.com
Jose received his BA in Anthropology from San Diego State University in 2011. He is now pursuing his MA in Applied Anthropology at SDSU with a focus on sociocultural anthropology.
His interest include: immigration/migration, politics, power and economy.

Back to top

David Hyde
Dghyde14@gmail.com
David graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in 2009 and is currently a first year graduate student focusing in archaeology. He is interested in Mesoamerican archaeology; specifically settlement and household archaeology, bioarchaeology, and ancestor worship in the Maya lowlands.

Back to top

Samuel Katzman
skatzman923@gmail.com
Samuel Katzman received his BA in Anthropology from the University of California, Davis. He is interested in Cultural and Medical anthropology.

Back to top

 

Sonia Khachikians
sonikians@gmail.com
Sonia Khachikians received her BA in Anthropology from New York University in 2010. She is now pursuing her MA in Anthropology with an emphasis in Medical Anthropology. Her interests include health care practices for children, child development and child & adolescent mental health.

Back to top

 

Sandra Kirkwood
kirkwood.sandra@gmail.com
Sandra received her B.A. in art and design from Missouri State University in 2005. After several years in the U.S. Navy, she returned to school and is an anthropology graduate student at San Diego State University. Sandra's focus is in cultural anthropology, and her research interests include the military, art, and the concepts of self identity and expression.

Back to top

 

Sam Kobari
skobari@gmail.com
Sam’s focus is on Physical Anthropology. His interests revolve around Forensic Anthropology and Paleopathology.

Back to top

Cassandra Krum
krum@rohan.sdsu.edu
Cassandra Krum earned her BA in anthropology at Washington State University where she studied the ceramics of prehistoric pueblo peoples. As a San Diego State University Grad student she is working with a museum collection from the Channel Islands.

Back to top

 

Alexander Lynes
Alexanderls99@gmail.com
Alex received his B.A. in History, with a minor in Political Science from the University of California Irvine. He then transferred to San Diego State University to pursue a graduate degree in Anthropology, subfield Archaeology. In 2010 he participated in the Whaley House Historical Archaeological dig in downtown San Diego. Alex is interested in many aspects of Anthropology but particularly Biological Anthropology, Bio Archaeology and Archaeology. Particular topics of interest include the history of the southwest, history of colonialism and how this is seen in the Archaeological record, along with San Diego County Historic Archaeology.
Back to top

Julia Martinez
texjules@gmail.com
Julia is a cultural anthropologist with emphases in Feminist Anthropology , Gender Studies, Queer Studies, and evolutionary processes. She graduated from Whittier College in 2008 with a BA in English and Gender/Women’s Studies, and is currently pursuing an MA in Cultural Anthropology at SDSU. She is also active in the Autism Spectrum Disorder field, and has worked with children as a Behavioral Therapist and Social Skills/Peer Specialist for many years. She is primarily driven by a passion for justice, and figuring out what that means across complex contexts in a globalizing world. She loves the earth and Her inhabitants, and believes that survival is a collective responsibility. She is a writer, yogi, Volvo enthusiast, native Texan, and dedicated rabble rouser.
Back to top

Matt Maxfeldt
matthewmaxfeldt@gmail.com
Matt’s research interests include historical archaeology, contact-period archaeology, the archaeology of colonialism, California history and prehistory, and the archaeology of the African Diaspora. His current research concerns determining the social status of African American freed slave and pioneer Nate Harrison, who made his home on Palomar Mountain. He is also looking to develop local grade school curriculum that integrates regional African American history with San Diego history.
Back to top

Nadia Merino Chávez
nadia_merino@yahoo.com
merino@rohan.sdsu.edu
Nadia Merino Chávez is pursuing a Master’s degree in Anthropology. She has conducted research in Zimatlan de Álvarez, Oaxaca examining how economic changes and the impact of globalization have produced changes in the economy of the kitchen and household experiences for local women. Ongoing changes have affected local food practices as households have begun to integrate new foods into their diet where traditional foods attached to their ethnicity compete with modern foods. She was a 2008-2009 recipient of the Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship studying Tu’un Sa’vi, the indigenous language spoken by Mixtecos. Her research interests include applied anthropology ,linguistics, ethnicity, globalization, immigration/migration studies, gender studies, health and nutrition.
Back to top

Keshia Montifolca
keshia.montifolca@gmail.com
Keshia received her BA from UC Santa Cruz in 2008. She is pursuing her Masters in Anthropology at San Diego State and is interested in historical archaeology. This last summer she was involved with the excavations at the Whaley House in Old Town

Back to top

Brett Moore
brett_a_moore@hotmail.com
Brett earned his BA in History and Anthropology at Sonoma State University in 2008 and kicked off his graduate studies at SDSU in August 2011. His primary field of interest is historical archaeology, with a particular focus pre-Colombian Mesoamerican cultures. Specific interests include conflict archaeology, archaeoastronomy, and the connection of both to ritual within Mayan society

Back to top

Olea Morris
olea.morris@gmail.com
Olea received her B.A. from George Mason University in Anthropology and Art History with a minor in Classical Studies in 2007, and is currently pursing a MA in Anthropology at San Diego State University focusing in Cultural Anthropology. Prior to graduate study, she participated in archaeological field schools in Nemea, Greece and Wadi Araba, Jordan. Her research interests include ethics in archaeology, indigenous rights, community museums, and sustainable development.
Back to top

Ben Nugent
bnugent@rohan.sdsu.edu
Ben received his BA in Anthropology from the University of Hawai’i Manoa in 2007 and began the Master’s Program in Anthropology at SDSU in August 2009. His interests include: environmental anthropology, political ecology, and the anthropology of development and agriculture. He hopes to examine the shift in agricultural and pastoral practices in Argentina.
Back to top

 

Jeff Peterson
petersonjv@gmail.com
Jeff received his Bachelor's Degree in Anthropology from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana in the Spring of 2008. He has been enrolled in San Diego State's Master's program in Anthropology since August, 2008. Jeff is an ethnoprimatologist interested in the variables that affect human perceptions of nonhuman primates. Currently, his research examines the role of folklore and mythology in the relationship between sympatric populations of human and nonhuman primates.
Back to top

Mike Prouty
michaelprouty33@gmail.com
Mike received his BA in 2006 from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and is currently working towards his MA, focusing on historical archaeology. Prior to beginning the graduate program at SDSU, he worked for multiple cultural resource management firms, primarily within the Intermountain Region of the United States. His research interests include contact-period archaeology, historic settlement patterns, and water rights in Southern California

Back to top

Barbara Quimby
quimby@rohan.sdsu.edu
Barbara is pursuing her Masters in Anthropology at San Diego State, with a focus on issues in environmental anthropology in Asia-Pacific and Latin America. Her research with an island community in Indonesia will explore how resource use decisions are made, how community members become active in conservation planning and management, and particularly how women engage in the process. Barbara received her BA in Anthropology from Occidental College in Los Angeles and spent over ten years working in the non-profit sector, most recently for The Nature Conservancy, before beginning her thesis work.
Back to top

Colin Reimer
creimer1@alumni.nd.edu
Colin graduated with a BA in Anthropology from the University of Notre Dame in 2009. He is currently exploring cultural anthropology, with an emphasis on the anthropology of sport. His research interests include examining issues of identity, ritual, and symbolism and the ways in which they manifest themselves in the San Diego State University community. Additional interests include displaced sports fan communities, identity issues related to the movement of professional sports franchises, and the current controversies surrounding intercollegiate athletics. He has also assisted in the research leading up to the creation of the "Old Oil Can Trophy," which is awarded to the winner of the Fresno State - San Diego State football game.
Back to top

Stephen Rochester
rocheste@rohan.sdsu.edu
Stephen’s research interests include prehistoric archaeology in North America, lithic debitage analysis, applying meme theory systematics in an evolutionary archaeological framework, and group mobility. He is currently working on a thesis that incorporates lithic debitage analysis using macroscopic techniques as well as obsidian hydration analysis, and sourcing using data from a single site. The data should be enlightening in forming a better understanding of the site’s stratigraphic integrity, mobility of the site’s occupants, and will be useful for inter-site comparisons.
Back to top

Linda Sanchez
lindaes15@gmail.com
Linda received her Bachelor of Arts from San Diego State in 2007. She is currently conducting research for her Master of Arts in Applied Anthropology with Dr. Perez as her thesis chair. Her study is focusing on the experiences and perceptions of Hispanic unaccompanied minors that enter the USA illegally. She believes that in order to form better immigration policy for these minors, we first need to fully understand the issue. Her research population includes two shelters in the San Diego area. Linda has also done work with AB540 students at SDSU and at Palomar College.
Back to top

Savanna Schuermann
schuerma@rohan.sdsu.edu
Savanna received her BA in anthropology from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2009. Currently, she is pursuing her Masters in Anthropology at SDSU. Her focus is in cultural anthropology, although she has several interests lying within the biological subfield. Specifically, she is interested in environmental anthropology, indigenous rights, sustainable development, conservation and the impact of neocolonialism on the contemporary global economy.

Back to top

John Spotts
spottsjohn@sbcglobal.net
John is interested in biological anthropology, in particular ancient DNA and stable isotope applications. He is working with Dr. Arion Mayes on a Late Formative Period Maya series (in the Lower Rio Verde Valley) to determine social organization and long distance exchange using aDNA. For fun he surfs, swims and plays volleyball.

Back to top

 

Sean Tangco
stangco@gmail.com
Personal Website: www.seanthropology.org
Sean Tangco is earning his MA in applied anthropology. He is interested in how ethnicity, socioeconomic status, community, and religion influence how first-year undergraduate students make their decisions while pursuing their degree. Sean also studies immigration policies as well as border conditions between Tijuana and Southern California. He earned his BS at SDSU in May 2011, double majoring in biology and Spanish. As a McNair Scholar, he plans to advance to his Ph.D.
Back to top

Elizabeth Thompson
bessthompson@gmail.com
Elizabeth earned her BA in Anthropology from UC Santa Cruz in 2008. In 2012 she began working towards her Master's Degree in Applied Anthropology. She is interested in power and authority within Western biomedicine, end-of-the-world narratives, and the urban farming movement.

Back to top

Carlos Vega
rcvega10@sbcglobal.net
I recieved my B.A. in Anthropology from San Diego State in Fall 2011 and began the Master's program at SDSU in Fall 2012. I'm interested in Forensic Anthropology especially border fatalities and how to better identify their remains.

Back to top

Tiffany Wade
tw_wade@yahoo.com
Tiffany received her BA in anthropology from San Diego State University in 2009. She is now pursuing her Master of Arts in Anthropology with an emphasis in biological anthropology. Her research interests include ethnoprimatology, primate behavior and ecology, overlapping resource use between humans and nonhuman primates, indigenous knowledge, cultural perceptions of nonhuman primates, conservation and development, as well as captive environmental enrichment and public education.
Back to top

Lynn Merrill Weyman
lmweyman@att.net
Lynn is a medical anthropologist, with a background in health care disparities and inequities among patients and medical practitioners. Her studies have focused on how people with schizophrenia and those closest to them contend with this disease, and the changing epidemiological cultural patterns of those diagnosed with sickle cell anemia. She has also conducted extensive research on chronic disabling pain, investigating how people navigate the Western biomedical system to seek relief without or despite being stigmatized. Her current graduate research involves understanding how patient-practitioner encounters and disparities are shaped as patients with pelvic cancers endure radiation therapy as part of their treatment protocol. More specifically, she is studying how patients establish their identities via Internet support communities to better understand and cope with this treatment modality and its many long- and late-term side effects. Other areas of interest include psychological anthropology, issues of subjectivity, and the connection between nutrition and illness. She received her B.A. from the University of California, San Diego, in 2005.
Back to top

Charles Whitney
charlie.ethan.whitney@gmail.com
I am currently researching government policies in Latin American education and how educational systems perpetuate existing social and economic conditions. I am using rural Oaxaca as a case study to further understand the potential for creating education policies and strategies that enable teachers to become critical educators in rural areas of Latin America. The primary goal is to advocate for the expansion of government funded compulsory education while concurrently aiding in the development of alternative curriculums aimed at developing critical thinking abilities at a younger age. My dream is to see teachers in rural areas of Latin America educate students in a manner that allows students to critically identify, evaluate, and combat social/economic systems of oppression.

Back to top

Brenda Wills
bwills@sciences.sdsu.edu
Brenda received her BS in Anthropology from the University of La Verne in 2002. She started the MA program at SDSU in Spring 09 with a focus on biological anthropology. Her interests include bioarchaeology, paleopathology, and forensic anthropology.  Brenda’s current research is on the health and nutrition of a museum collection from the San Mateo area of California. 

Back to top

Lang Yin
lyin360@gmail.com
Lang is an applied, cultural anthropologist and received her BA in general anthropology in 2006. Her interests lie in issues of multi-ethnic identity in American culture, the ways in which one defines one's self, and the phenomenon of cultural assimilation, especially within the context of economic and financial pressures. At the moment she is studying Asian immigrant women working in America, and the fluid nature of ethnicity as it pertains to family and work roles.
Back to top

Alison Zak
aazak127@gmail.com
Alison earned her Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology at the University of South Florida in 2011. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree at SDSU with a focus in primatology. Her specific research interests are in ethnoprimatology and include human-nonhuman primate interactions, primate behavioral responses to anthropogenic effects, and the influence of religion on human perceptions of nonhuman primates.

Recent Graduates

Erin Blankenship-Sefczek
ebsefczek@gmail.com
Erin graduated with her MA in anthropology in 2011 with an emphasis in bioarchaeology. She received her BA in anthropology from San Diego State University in 2008. Erin is a Biological Anthropologist interested in bioarchaeology, dental anthropology, skeletal biology, paleopathology, morphology and function, and forensic anthropology. Her master's research focused on the bio-cultural analysis of a non-elite Classic Maya population from the western Belize Valley. Her future research interests include looking at the impact and spread of agriculture and its affect on population health and community structure as demonstrated in the biology. She is particularly interested in the peopling of the New World and the spread of disease in different social structures, including those populations who incorporated agriculture slowly compared to those who incorporated the practice quickly
Back to top

Maggie David
David2@rohan.sdsu.edu
Maggie graduated in the Spring of 2010. She received her BA in anthropology from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2007. Maggie’s interests include: bioarchaeology, paleopathology, forensic anthropology, and skeletal biology. Her thesis research involved the examination of the human remains from a small, historical burial ground outside of Cincinnati, Ohio.

Back to top  

Amanda L. Ellwanger
amanda.ellwanger@utsa.edu
Amanda's research interests include: ethnoprimatology; primate ecology and behavioral flexibility; ecological overlap between humans & nonhuman primates; conservation; peoples' perceptions of the environment and conservation; and zoonotic disease transmission. She graduated with her M.A. in May 2010 from SDSU. Her master's research examined ecological overlap and cultural attitudes towards the Guizhou snub nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus brelichi) in Fanjingshan National Nature Reserve. Amanda is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Texas at San Antonio. For her doctoral research she plan to examine the behavioral ecology of chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) in Western Cape, South Africa. She will also examine peoples' attitudes towards chacma baboons and conservation.
Back to top

Shelby Gunderman
smgunderman@hotmail.com
Shelby is interested in using archaeology and cultural anthropology jointly, pre-historic and historical archaeology in California, and colonial archaeology.



Back to top

Elizabeth Herlihy
Herlihy@rohan.sdsu.edu
Elizabeth received her BA in anthropology from UC Santa Barbara in 2007. She is a medical anthropologist and her interests include obesity and diabetes in the biocultural perspective, nutritional anthropology, nutrition education in children, subjectivity, evolutionary psychology, medical travel, and the semantic derogation of women. She is a TA at SDSU and is the Book Reviews Editorial Assistant for the Medical Anthropology Quarterly. Her research looks at the ways teachers negotiate childhood nutrition in the classroom.
Back to top

Douglas Joseph La Rose
douglas_larose@yahoo.com
Personal Website
Douglas completed the Applied Anthropology program in early 2011. His research concerns human-environment relationships in rural Ghana as they pertain to agricultural strategies and environmental change. In particular, he is interested in the ways rural farmers have perceived changes in the environment and embodied these perceptions in narratives as well as adaptability strategies. These narratives range from observations that spiritual beings and "dwarves" who live in the forests have vanished, to complex ethno-ecological understandings of the hydrologic cycle as they pertain to weather perturbations. Adaptability strategies undertaken by rural farmers include planting more drought-resistant crops and implementing agricultural strategies traditionally practiced in more arid, northern regions. His ethnographic fieldwork gives voice to "local" perspectives on broader issues such as climate change and looks at how these perspectives both mirror and challenge the "global" discourse on climate change. He currently lives in Ghana with his wife and son
Back to top

Wendy Leicht
leicht@rohan.sdsu.edu
Wendy is a second year graduate student in the Anthropology department at SDSU. Her interests lay in cultural anthropology; specifically nutritional anthropology and environmental anthropology in the Pacific Island region.

Back to top

Conor Muirhead
conor_muirhead@yahoo.com
Conor graduated in the Spring of 2009 and has been working in Cambodia for several months. Conor is an urban anthropologist focusing in the re-imagination of historic urban space, who’s thesis emphasized Old Town, San Diego. He also focuses on the commoditization of history and the commoditization of space at tourist locations.

Back to top

Angie Pham
nanami2k8@hotmail.com
Angie is a second year graduate student interested in prehistoric and historical archaeology. She has been involved in the Whaley House excavations in Old Town San Diego and plans to focus her thesis on this site in hopes of being able to continue the reconstruction of San Diego's history.

Back to top

Tim Sefczek
tsefczek@hotmail.com
Tim graduated in the Spring of 2009. His undergraduate was in wildlife biology/conservation. His current interests include primate conservation and behavior. His research specifically focused on the feeding ecology of aye-aye in Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar. He has also conducted observational studies on interaction of between juvenile and adult male captive orangutans at the San Diego Zoo.
Back to top

Jaima Smith
jaima_smith@hotmail.com
Jaima's research interests include primate behavior & ecology; socioecology; reintroduction; and conservation. Her current research focuses on whether wild-born, captive-raised Javan gibbons (Hylobates moloch) can acquire the appropriate behavioral repertoire necessary to be reintroduced and survive in the wild after a period of rehabilitation. She is conducting her research at the Javan Gibbon Rescue & Rehabilitation Center in Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park, West Java, Indonesia.
Back to top

Kristin Tennesen
ktennesen819@yahoo.com
Kristin graduated in the Spring of 2010. She received her BA from SDSU in 2007. Her interests include historical archaeology, faunal analysis, and bioarchaeology. Her thesis research involved analysis of the faunal remains and soil chemistry from the historical homestead of San Diego pioneer Nate Harrison.

Back to top

Jenna Wehr
jennajwehr@hotmail.com
Jenna graduated in the Fall of 2009. Improving the captive sucess rate of sifakas and other lemurs is at the root of Jenna's research interests. While Jenna's studies focused primarily on ecology and conservation while attending Purdue as an undergraduate, her eyes were opened to the importance of understanding the needs and rights of the peoples surrounding primates studied as a graduate student at SDSU. In the fall of 2008 Jenna studied the behavior and diet of white sifaka in the unprotected forests of southern Madagascar while staying in a local village.
Back to top

Michael Wilken
mikewilken@yahoo.com
As an applied anthropologist, Mike has worked with indigenous cultural authorities, tribal communities, NGOs, universities, museums and governmental agencies on both sides of the US-Mexico border. These experiences have shaped his research interests in the ethnography of Baja California and linkages with Yuman peoples of California and Arizona, material culture and technology, culture change, cultural revitalization, museum curation, traditional indigenous environmental management and sustainable development. He is currently collaborating with members of the Tecate area Kumiai communities, and the Mexican civil association Corredor Histórico CAREM to create a Kumiai community museum in Tecate, Baja California. He is also participating in an NSF-NEH “Documenting Endangered Languages” project, recording Kumiai language varieties as spoken in Baja California. His thesis focuses on Kumiai ethnobotany.
Back to top