Ken Batai
kbatai1@uic.edu

2000 B.A. Southern Illinois University at
Carbondale
2003 M.A. University of Illinois at Chicago

Physical Anthropology and Bioarchaeology, Ancient DNA; Peru
 

My primary interests are ancient DNA analysis and Andean archaeology. I am also interested in studying genetic variation in modern populations to understand demographic and population history. Currently, I have several projects. The first is a study of ancient DNA from Peru. Another project involves analyses of published mtDNA data of modern populations, using population genetics software programs as well as other software to reconstruct the phylogeny of mtDNA. I am also performing computer analyses of DNA data from Africa. (10/05)

John Beaver
BeaverJ@nmaicrc.si.edu

Archaeology, Native American Studies; North America

Paul Bick
pbick2@uic.edu

2005 M.A. NorthEastern University (Linguistics)

Haiti, Rethinking Community based Conservation

Zachary Blair
zblair2@uic.edu

2005 B.A. University of Central Florida
2006 M.A. (Liberal Studies-Race, Gender, and Sexuality) University of Missouri - Kansas City

Cultural Anthropology, Urban Anthropology, Environmental Anthropology, Queer Communities and Culture, Race and Gender; North America (United States)

Jeff Buechler
jbuech1@uic.edu

1995 B.S. (Environmental Engineering) California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo
2003 M.A. University of Illinois at Chicago

Archaeology, Ethnicity and Architectural Style and Socio-Political Relationships, Ancient Population Movements, Ethnic Identity and Relations, Mayan Hieroglyphic Texts and Ancient Maya culture, Complex societies; Mesoamerica/Maya region,

Rebecca Caldaroni
rcalda2@uic.edu

B.A. (Anthropology) Wheaton College, ll.

Archaeology of religion, iconography, ritual artifacts.

, Changing water into wine

Gabriel Cantarutti
gcanta2@uic.edu

B.A. University of Chile

Archaeology; South America

Sofia Chacaltana-Cortez
schaca1@uic.edu

2006 M.A. University of Illinois at Chicago

Archaeology; Peru

I am interested in the strategies imperial or complex societies use for expansion and incorporation of new territories. Also, I am looking at how less complex societies and local populations were transformed by new imperial institutions. For my dissertation, I am looking at the characteristics of the Inka empire in the far southern part of Peru and northern Chile, an area known as the Colesuyo.

My research focuses on Inka tampus (waystations), imperial institutions that were systematically built along the extensive roads networks of the Empire. Tampus were Inka facilities that had the primary functions of providing foodstuffs and lodging to state travelers and supporting the local personnel. However, tampus filled other functions that were based on the political and economic interests of powerful polities, and the needs of local people and the environment. Therefore, through the investigation of tampus in the Colesuyo, I seek to understand the Inka strategies of incorporation for this marginalized region of the southern Andes.

Manola Corrent
mcorre20@uic.edu

Humanities at the Universita Degli Studi, Di Trento, Italy.

M.A. (Anthropology) University of Oklahoma

Urban Poverty, Social Justice, Race, Non Governmental Organizations and Social Movements. Latin America-Brazil

Chris Davis
cdavis14@uic.edu

1998 B.A. (Chemistry) Dartmouth College
2003 M.A. University of Illinois at Chicago

Archaeology, Prehistoric Religion and Folklore, Paleoenvironment; Caribbean

Stephen Davis
sdavis8@uic.edu

2001 M.A. (Geography) University of Illinois at Chicago
2007 M.A. (Anthropology) University of Illinois at Chicago

Anthropology and Geography, Latino Migration and Urban Enclaves, Globalization; Latin America

Rebecca Deeb
rdeeb2@uic.edu

2002 B.A. Oberlin College

Archaeology, Gender, Landscape, Museum Studies; Mesoamerica

Rory Dennison
rdenni2@uic.edu

B.A. Minnesota State University - Moorehead

Archaeology; China

Shannon Freeman
sfreem2@uic.edu

1996 B.A. (Anthropology and English) Auburn University
2001 M.A. (Anthropology) University of Illinois at Chicago

Archaeology & GIS, LA-ICPMS Mass Spectrometry; Southeastern United States

Mark Golitko
mgolit1@uic.edu

1999 B.S. (History) University of Wisconsin at Madison
2002 M.A. (Anthropology) University of Illinois at Chicago

Archaeology and Archaeometry, Belgian Initial Neolithic (Linearbandkeramik Culture)

My research focuses on early Neolithic villages in Belgium of the Linearbandkeramik (LBK) culture. I am studying the movement of ceramics between villages in the region and beyond using archaeometrical techniques, principally inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). This is part of a larger project under the direction of Dr. Lawrence H. Keeley in collaboration with archaeologists at the Institut Royal de Sciences Naturelles de Belgique (IRSNB) in Brussels aimed at further understanding the relationship between warfare, trade/exchange, and alliance building on the frontier of agricultural expansion ca. 5200 BC. (9/05)

Deb Green
dgreen10@uic.edu

My doctoral research is focused on reconstructing the geomorphology and paleoenvironmental conditions during the rise of chiefdom-level societies in the Tanjay region of Negros, Oriental Philippines. I am specifically interested in land clearance practices associated with swidden fsarming and how these activities may have contributed to environmental change. The results of project will then be used to address current models on the evolution of chiefdoms. (10/05)

Deirdre Guthrie
dguthr1@uic.edu

B.A. (with Honors in Community Studies) University of California at Santa Cruz
M.A. University of Illinois at Chicago

Cultural Anthropology, Gender, Tourism, Transnational Studies; Dominican Republic

My work focuses on the extreme shifts that globalization - the reshaping of borders in an expanding capitalist world market - is introducing to the diverse inhabitants of a Dominican tourist town, particularly those who lack access to the formal economy such as market vendors, sex workers,taxi drivers, and Haitian construction workers.

Las Ballenas (a pseudonym) is known as a town of transgression in which uneducated, resource-poor migrants dream of social advancement through becoming dynamic consumers in the market economy while nostalgic EuroAmericans seek a “pre-modern” world in which their fading privileges can be maximized. Behind the tourist scrim designed to mystify exploitive power relations and class struggle there is a dense network of host/guest strategies and negotiations over land, property, and identity, as well as spatial disciplinary tactics involving police, gossip, and magic.

In charting “frictions and flows” of the town’s inhabitants, my work examines the protective and prohibitive function of boundarywork; in particular under what conditions elite/state/national borders constitute themselves and under what conditions they dissolve. In so doing I situate a tourist town in asymmetrical power-laden practices that are as global as they are local, and make linkages between peoples lives in full recognition of the specificities and differences of their contexts.

Madeleine Halac
mhalac2@uic.edu

B.A. 1993 New York University Anthropology; Mesoamerica; Mayan epigraphy, iconography and socio-political dynamics

Caleb Kestle
ckestl1@uic.edu

2004 B.A. University of Illinois at Chicago

Archaeology; Mesoamerica

Nam Kim
nkim3@uic.edu

B.A. (International Relations) University of Pennsylvania
M.A. (Political Science) New York University
M.A. (Anthropology) University of Illinois at Chicago

Cultural Anthropology, Warfare and Social Evolution, with emphasis on Metal Age Societies in Vietnam

This proposed project seeks to examine the underpinnings of social complexity and political centralization in the Bac Bo region of Metal Age Vietnam. To be evaluated is the relationship between warfare and the emergence of complex polities defined anthropologically as chiefdoms and states. Through archaeological fieldwork, data will be collected to identify the embryonic conditions present when small-scale, acephalous, and egalitarian communities became subsumed within larger, more complex polities. In collaboration with Vietnamese archaeologists, preliminary survey, test excavation, and artifact analysis will be conducted at the site of Co Loa, a fortified, proto-urban citadel in the Red River Valley near Hanoi. In reconstructing the chronological history for Co Loa’s fortifications, the project seeks to determine if political centralization in the Bac Bo region preceded its colonization by the Chinese Imperial Han at 111 BC. Project results will have broad implications for both state formation theory and debates surrounding the origins of Vietnamese civilization, and will also build a foundation for future collaboration between Vietnamese and American researchers.

Adam Longman

B.A. University of Illinois at Chicago

Urban and Environmental Geography, GIS

Patrick Knight
pknigh1@uic.edu

2001 B.A. (Mass Communications) St. Xavier University
2004 M.A. (Anthropology) University of Illinois at Chicago

Cultural Anthropology, Media Anthropology, Cyberspace,
Tourism, Slavoj Žižek's Notion of Ideological Fantasy, Psychoanalytical
Methodology; Ireland.

Paul Lakosky
plakos1@uic.edu

1990 B.A. University of Minnesota
2004 M.A. University of Illinois at Chicago

Cultural Anthropology, Social Organization, Medical Anthropology, Globalization and Public Health, Contexts of Uncertainty, Risk Theory, HIV/AIDS.

Dylan Thomas Lott
dlott2@uic.edu

B.A. (Psychology) University of Illinois at Chicago
Phenomena of psychosis in urban settings, Healing practices (India/Brazil), Relationship between cosmological, historical conceptions of persons- Use of iconography to address/express psychological and cultural dimensions

Alex Markovic
amarko2@uic.edu

2006 B.A. University of Illinois at Chicago
2007 M.A. University of Illinois at Chicago

Cultural Anthropology (Ethnography & Ethnohistory), Culture and Identity; Balkans

My research focuses on the construction and negotiation of ethnic identity of the Roma in southeastern Serbia. I specifically focus on the inter-ethnic interactions between non-Rom celebrants and Romani musicians in the context of the performing of music, and how music becomes a site of ritualized performance and the negotiation of Romani ethnic identity. My work also hopes to understand how global, political, and economic forces are impacting the performance of identity and the construction of ethnicity by the Roma with respect to music and musical performance.

Fiona Lynch

2007 B.A. University of Illinois at Chicago

Bioanthropology, Medical Anthropology, Obligate Midwifery, Public Health, Infectious Disease Epidemiology

Molly McGown
mmcgow3@uic.edu

B.A. (Anthropology and Gender Studies) Cornell University

Maternal and Child Health, Citizenship, Differential Access to Health Care and Resources, Intersection of Health Policy and Politics of Food.

East Africa, Urban Populations in US & Caribbean

Jim Meierhoff
jmeier3@uic.edu

2004 B.A. University of Illinois at Chicago

Archaeology, Mayan Hieroglyphs; Mesoamerica

Lisa Niziolek
lnizio1@uic.edu

1996 B.A. University of Chicago
2003 M.A. University of Illinois at Chicago

Archaeology, Ceramics, Craft Specialization, Chiefdoms, Ethnoarchaeology; Philippines and Ireland

I am interested in examining production and exchange relationships in pre-state societies through ceramic analysis, in areas including the prehispanic Philippines and Neolithic Ireland.The goal of my dissertation project is to provide a better understanding of earthenware production in the prehispanic Philippine chiefdom of Tanjay through chemical analysis of pottery and clay. The project also includes ethnoarchaeological observations of living potters, ethnohistoric research of pottery production through Spanish and Chinese records, analysis of ethnographic and archaeological museum artifacts associated with pottery production and use, and analysis of photographs of traditional pottery production in the Philippines. (2/06)

Laura Nussbaum-Barberena
lnussb2@uic.edu

2001 B.A. Sociology and Environmental Studies, Whitman College

Cultural Anthropology, Central America, Social Movements, Cultural Activism

Sara Pfannkuche
spfann1@uic.edu

B.A. Michigan State University

Archaeology, Geoarchaeology and Settlement Patterns; North America

My dissertation area is the Pecatonica River Valley in Northern Illinois. My research interest is learning about how people used river valleys:  what landforms were used by prehistoric and historic peoples within the river valley and how did that preference change through time? Also, did this change in landform utilization affect subsistence or settlement patterns? Lastly, I'm interested in comparing settlement patterns along large river systems (such as the Mississippi) to patterns along small river systems (Pecatonica) to see whether they are comparable.

Russ S. Quick
rquick2@uic.edu

1997 B.A. Anthropology (M.C.L.), Appalachian State University
1997 B.A. History (M.C.L.), Appalachian State University
2001 M.A. Anthropology, University of Illinois at Chicago

Archaeology, GIS; Belgium

Danielle Riebe
driebe2@uic.edu

B.A. (Archaeology) University of Evansville

Central Asian Archaeology, Nomadic Tribes of the Iron Age

Evin Rodkey
erodke2@uic.edu

1999 B.A. (Psychology) Indiana University-Bloomington

Cultural Anthropology

Matt Schauer
mschau5@uic.edu

2004 B.A. (History) University of Minnesota
2007 M.A. University of Illinois at Chicago

Nicola Sharratt
nsharr2@uic.edu

2004 B.A. University of Cambridge
2007 M.A. Anthropology, University of Illinois at Chicago

Archaeology, Gender; South America (Andes)

My doctoral research focuses on the collapse of the Tiwanaku state (ca. AD 1000) and the processes of identity negotiation in the wake of political disintegration. Drawing on mortuary data from the Moquegua Valley, southern Peru, home to the largest Tiwanaku enclave outside the Titicaca Basin, I am examining shifting notions of shared and particular identities, as communities reacted to the major socio-political change wrought by violent and prolonged state collapse. Utilizing the argument that funerals are important loci for the construction, maintenance and renegotiation of identities, I am comparing evidence for mortuary practices from Chen Chen, a site dating to the height of Tiwanaku state presence in Moquegua, with those at Tumilaca la Chimba, a smaller site established after the state disintegrated and state centers were abandoned. I am using a range of data, both biological and cultural, to explore the complex ways in which mourners at Tumilaca la Chimba both maintained a community identity rooted in Tiwanaku ancestry and redefined salient intra-community identities. 

Cecilia Smith
csmith83@uic.edu

BA in Archaeology, Boston University
MS in GIS and Spatial Analysis in Archaeology, University College London

Rise of complex societies, warfare, and trade systems, Southeast Asia and Polynesia

GIS applications in anthropology and archaeology

Larissa Smith
lmsmith4@uic.edu

B.A. University of Arizona

Socio-cultural Anthropology, Archaeology, Ethnoarchaeology, Cross-Cultural Religious Similarities; Prehistories of Pacific, East African, and Native North American Cultures

Jennifer Wulffen
jwulff2@uic.edu

B.A. Southern Illinois University
M.A. Northern Illinois University

Pre-ceramic Peru, Norte Chico Region, Developing Complex Societies, economic systems  

Erin Antalis
eantal2@uic.edu

B.A. Florida State University

Cultural Anthropology; South America

Emily Baca Marroquin

1999 BA (Archaeology) Universidad National Mayor de San Marcos (Lima, Peru)

Archaeology, Andes Area (Peru), Interactions of Complex Societies

John Hicks
jhicks5@uic.edu

B.A. Ohio University HTC 2007

Anthropology Major with Minors/certificates in Spanish, GIS and Environmental Studies

Erin Rice
erice1@uic.edu

B.A. University of Michigan

Archaeology; North America, Europe

John F Michels
jmiche7@uic.edu

1999 B.S. University of Wisconsin at La Crosse
2002 M.Ed. University of Wisconsin at La Crosse

Cultural anthropology, Canada

Damian Peoples
dpeopl3@uic.edu

B.A. Indiana University
2005 M.A Indiana University

Cultural anthropology, Gender Studies, Western Europe

Matthew Piscitelli
mpisci2@uic.edu

Household Archaeology, Preceramic Peru, Cultural Ecology, Ancient Warfare, Evolution of Complex Society

Luisa J. Rollins
lrolli2@uic.edu

B.S. in Economics University of Central Florida
M.A. in International Business University of Florida

Cultural and Ecological Anthropology, Tourism, Environment, Ethnobotany and Gender, Latin America

William J. Pestle
wpestle2@uic.edu

2001 MSc University of Bradford
1999 BA University of Michigan

Bioarchaeology, Stable Isotopes, Food and Society, Caribbean prehistory

Neslihan Sen
nsen2@uic.edu

B.A. Bogazici University
M.A. Istanbul University

Cultural Anthropology; Middle East

Jennifer Starbird
jstarb2@uic.edu

2001 B.A. Lake Forest College

Archaeology, Artifact Conservation; Mesoamerica

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