Edward H. & Rosamond B. Spicer Travel Award

Eligibility

Application and Deadline

Previous Recipients

2023

Kevin Boes

Kevin Boes completed his bachelor’s degree in Medical Anthropology at Creighton University in 2022. As an undergraduate, he participated in research projects investigating understandings of local food production, housing disparities, and cultures of inclusivity in the Omaha Swing Dance community. The latter project produced a manuscript which was published in Creighton University’s QUEST journal of undergraduate research. His undergraduate program provided him familiarity with quantitative methods such as statistical analysis, qualitative methods such as interviews and visual research, and more specialized methods such as geographic information systems (GIS) and group concept mapping (GCM). He received an undergraduate research fellowship from the Creighton University Center for Undergraduate Research and Scholarship (CURAS), the Jerry Clark award from Creighton University’s Department of Cultural and Social Studies, and a Rising Senior Scholar award from CURAS. He is currently finishing his master’s degree in Public Health at Creighton University, where he has worked as a research assistant on projects investigating Eastern Nebraskans’ beliefs about flooding health risks and the effects of 2021 Winter Storm Uri on Texas residents. The former project has been presented at the International Medical Geography Society’s 2022 annual meeting and has produced a manuscript currently being reviewed for publication by the Journal of Emergency Management. The latter project produced a manuscript which was published in 2022 in the Journal of Environmental Health. He currently works at the City of Omaha Public Works Department as a Geographic Information Systems Technician, and he is teaching an undergraduate course on evaluation and assessment at Creighton University. He hopes to continue his education in an Anthropology doctoral program and further develop his experience conducting applied anthropological research. While Kevin’s previous research suggests a wide variety of topics of interest, he is particularly passionate about intersections between health and language in settings where multiple sub-cultures interact.

2022

Shaye Soifoine

Shaye Soifoine is a MA student in applied anthropology at the University of South Florida. She received her BA in anthropology from Missouri State University and was a Peace Corps volunteer in Comoros from 2017-2018. Her master’s thesis research focuses on Central African refugee women’s experiences of resettlement and integration, particularly food (in)security and (im)mobility, in Tampa, FL. This research was supported by the University of South Florida’s Center for the Advancement of Food Security and Healthy Communities. Soifoine’s research interests include environmental and political anthropology, gender, identity, migration, visual methodologies, East Africa, and the Western Indian Ocean. She will be continuing her studies as a PhD student at the University of South Florida. 

Amanda M. Thiel

Amanda M. Thiel is a Ph.D. Candidate in anthropology at Washington State University. She researches ethnobiology in the Maya area with foci in traditional food and medicine practices. Her prior studies include an M.A. thesis investigating ethnobotanical knowledge variation in Guatemala and an interdisciplinary B.A. relating to ethnobotany and cultural traditions of herbal medicine. Amanda uses collaborative ethnographic methods to study Indigenous Americans’ relationships with the environment and their home health practices in order to revitalize cultural practices and identities, inform theories of culture, and encourage decolonization. 

2020

Amanda Stoltz

Amanda Stoltz is a Ph.D. student in Environmental Studies with a focus on Coastal Science and Policy at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Amanda earned her B.A. in creative writing and marine biology at Tulane University. After completing her Bachelor's degree, Amanda taught marine science at The Newfound Harbor Marine Institute in Big Pine Key. She went on to receive a Master of Science in Marine Ecosystems and Society from the University of Miami, where she researched fishing industry views on sea-level rise risk and adaptation. After graduating she worked in the social science research division at NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center. She is currently researching the socioeconomic impacts of Harmful Algal Blooms on the Florida Gulf Coast.

2019

Jelena Golubovic

Jelena Golubovic is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Simon Fraser University. Her dissertation explores the social consequences of violence and its aftermath through an ethnographic study of Serb women in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She is a host of New Books in Eastern European Studies, and is also the editorial assistant for Anthropologica, the journal of the Canadian Anthropology Society. Her research was supported by a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Doctoral Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Her work is currently forthcoming in Anthropological Quarterly and Studies in Social Justice. 

Elena Lesley

Elena Lesley is a PhD candidate in anthropology at Emory University completing her dissertation research in Cambodia about mental health treatments being used with survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime (1975-1979). Her recent research built off of three previous years spent in the country as a journalist and researcher, focusing largely on the Khmer Rouge tribunal and historical narrative construction. Lesley’s interests include psychological and medical anthropology, ritual, collective memory, gender-based violence and post-conflict development. She holds an M.S. from Rutgers University in Global Affairs and a B.A. from Brown University in Political Science. In addition to her long-term work in Cambodia, Lesley has also conducted research in Rwanda, Tunisia, Malaysia and Estonia. Before beginning her PhD studies, she worked as a Senior Research Specialist at Innovations for Successful Societies, a research center run through Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

2018

Ryan Logan

Ryan Logan is dual degree student earning my PhD in applied (medical) anthropology and a master's of public health (MPH). Logan holds a B.A. in anthropology and an M.A. in applied anthropology from Indiana University. His anthropological research interests are broadly focused on health disparities, migration and medical paraprofessionals. Logan is currently finishing data collection for his dissertation research, which is focused on a type of non-clinical health worker called community health workers (CHWs). His research examines broadly, the lived experiences of CHWs as well as their impact on health care, specifically their ability to reduce health disparities through serving as a bridge between biomedical care and marginalized communities as well as through their work in activism.

Robin Valenzuela

Robin Valenzuela is a PhD candidate at Indiana University in the Anthropology Department.  Her dissertation, "Navigating Parental Fitness: Noncitizen Parents and Transnational Family Reunification" considers how undocumented Mexican parents who have been separated from their children due to abuse/neglect charges attempt to reunify with them domestically or transnationally.  

2017

Luminiţa-Anda Mandache

Luminiţa-Anda Mandache is a PhD Candidate in Socio-cultural Anthropology at the School of Anthropology, University of Arizona. Her dissertation research focuses the ideology and practice of grassroots "alternative" economic and political systems, in particular the liberation theology and solidarity economy movements, such as formulated and practiced in a context of extreme poverty and violence, in the northeast Brazil. Luminiţa has an MA in Anthropology from the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium), where her ethnographic work in in Santiago de Chile's largest marketplace explored the importance of the informal economy for the functioning of city's formal economy. 

Broadly, Luminiţa is interested in the implications of the process of "democratization" such as experienced in  Latin America (Brazil in particular)  and Eastern Europe (Romania, in particular) and the emergence of grassroots forms of local development that bridged local livelihoods with larger scale political and economic transformations. Her dissertation adviser is Dr. James Greenberg.

Daniella Santoro

Daniella Santoro is a PhD Candidate in Medical Anthropology at Tulane University. Her dissertation explores the experiences of rehabilitation in the afterlife of gun violence and violently acquired injury in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her ethnographic research focuses on how these residents organize around wheelchair specific mobility and vie for social visibility and justice at the intersections of race and disability. In addition to pursuing longer-term academic research on health disparities in violently acquired injuries, Daniella aims to increase health advocacy programs for spinal cord injured patients and others undergoing rehabilitation for injuries related to gun violence. 

2016

Deborah Andrews

Deborah Andrews is a Ph.D. Candidate with a concentration in cultural anthropology at the University of Florida. Her primary research interests are ethnobotany, environmental anthropology, globalization, and human rights. Her current research is on globalization consequences on small scale Andean quinoa farmers in Peru as it relates to biodiversity conservation and gender. Her work investigates the resilience and market savvy of local farmers through their organization via a community-based cooperative. Deborah holds an M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Florida, a J.D. from the University of Florida, and a B.A. from the University of Maryland in Psychology. Deborah practiced law in Washington, D.C. and Florida, before returning to graduate school.

Daina Stanley

Daina Stanley is a Ph.D. candidate in Medical Anthropology at McMaster University. Daina is currently conducting her dissertation research, which is influenced by her Community-based Research experiences and background in public health and social and medical anthropology.  Daina’s community-engaged ethnographic study examines community-based end-of-life care models and programs in prisons across the United States and explores the experiences and identities of prisoners engaged in hospice as “volunteer” providers of end-of-life care.  Her doctoral research will suggest policy changes and meaningful models of community-based end-of-life care in correctional settings that include prisoners in the process.  Ultimately, Daina aims to establish a community-engaged research platform that will impact end-of-life care and hospice services and programs in American prisons.   Her Ph.D. research reflects her commitment to the health and well-being of marginalized communities, specifically incarcerated communities.  She holds an M.A. in Anthropology and a B.A. in Anthropology and Criminology from the University of Ottawa.  

2015

Orisanmi Burton

I am a doctoral candidate in social anthropology with a concentration in Participatory Action Research at The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. My public scholarship has appeared in Counterpunch.org, anthropoliteia.net, Cultanth.org, and Anthropology News. I am presently working on my dissertation, tentatively entitled Taller Than The Wall: Carceral Activism in the Empire State. It examines the tradition of anti-prison praxis and knowledge production that emerged within the New York State Prison system following the Attica Prison Rebellion of 1971. This tradition, which continues to thrive today, is composed of multiple organizational forms, both inside and outside of the physical prison structure. Some of the questions guiding my research are: How does the dispersed, malleable and yet highly durable character of carceral activism suggest a potential reorientation of anthropological approaches to social movements? How does the praxis of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people rearticulate, disrupt and undermine established criminological concepts such as incapacitation, rehabilitation, deterrence, and prisoner reentry? In what ways has the black radical thought emerging from carceral sites influenced criminal justice discourse and public policy?

Nicole Hoellerer

Nicole Hoellerer is a Ph.D. student in Anthropology at Brunel University, London, UK. She holds a BSc in Social Anthropology and an M.Res in Social Anthropology, both from Brunel University. Originally from Austria, Nicole also briefly studied for an undergraduate degree in Political Sciences, Philosophy and Pedagogics at the University of Vienna, Austria. Nicole’s postgraduate study was largely concerned with the implementation and testing of Gross National Happiness (GNH) in Bhutan, during which she published a paper on the use of ethnographic research to measure GNH. For her Ph.D. studies Nicole shifted her focus from GNH to Bhutanese refugees, and conducted her fieldwork with Bhutanese refugees, who resettled in the North of England via the Gateway Protection Program – the UK’s organized refugee resettlement program for refugees in protracted refugee situations. Her research investigates more broadly the success and failure of refugee resettlement programs in the UK, the effects of policy on resettled refugees and the impact of resettlement on individuals arriving in host countries. Nicole’s research further explores the formation of grass-root community organizations amongst Bhutanese refugees, their structures and purposes, as well as the consequences of internal community divisions. She investigates the refugees’ relationships with their own and their host community, the manifestation of new hierarchies within their community, and their changing perceptions of social, economic and educational capital. By highlighting the context in which these refugees arrived in the UK, Nicole illustrates the impact of external forces, such as unemployment, lack of infrastructures and austerity measures on migrants in the UK. Furthermore, she looks at the impact of Bhutanese global diaspora, and how mobile technologies, internet communication technologies and IT-literacy allow refugees to disseminate information and maintain their relationships with other refugees across the globe. Nicole has also initiated the Bhutanese Refugee UK Film Project together with one Bhutanese refugee community organization. The aim of the film is not only to create awareness of Bhutanese refugees in the UK, but also to engage young refugees in initiating, realizing and enjoying community projects. Nicole is also part of a global research collaboration investigating Bhutanese refugee resettlement, which includes researchers from across the seven resettlement nations. The aim of this research group initiated by Dr. Hutt at SOAS London is to explore refugee resettlement on a global scale, and to assess the success and failures of international refugee policies and durable solutions. 

2014

Emily Brooks

Emily Brooks is a Ph.D. student in Cultural Anthropology and a Research Affiliate with the Steele/Burnand Anza-Borrego Desert Research Center at the University of California, Irvine. She holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Reed College, and an M.A. in Anthropology from UC Irvine. Her graduate research investigates the science and cultural politics of slow ecological disasters through a focus on water scarcity, climate change, and applied environmental science in the Southwestern United States. Her research asks: what are the stakes of acknowledging and responding to slow environmental threats that exceed both everyday human perception and conventional problem-solving timeframes like careers and lifetimes? How do community members, public officials, and environmental scientists perceive water scarcity and climate change as slow disasters, and how do these perceptions shape the ways that they participate (or don't participate) in projects to respond to them? Emily's graduate work is informed by her experiences working with UC Irvine researchers to develop a community-based participatory research initiative on water use and climate change in the town of Borrego Springs, California. For her dissertation project, she will follow both sides of this emerging research partnership - the community members and the academic scientists - as they work together to develop a collaborative response to environmental threats.

Tungalag Ulambayar

Tungalag Ulambayar is a PhD candidate in Rangeland Ecosystem Science at Colorado State University. Tungaa grew up in Southgobi of Mongolia raised by her grandparents who were Gobi nomadic herders. She received her undergraduate degree from Moscow State University after Lomonosov and did her MA degree at International University of Japan. Tungalag was one of the pioneering PRA (Participatory Rural Appraisal) facilitators in Mongolia from the mid 90s which has been the major tool for many community-based projects for the rural development in her country. Since 2003 she joined United Nations Development Programme in Mongolia as a Team leader for Environment and Disaster Risk Reduction. During her tenure, she led design and implementation of several community-based projects in the fields of natural resource management and disaster risk reduction by building capacities of pastoral community groups. Tungaa’s research interests include specifics of nomadic pastoralism, pastoral institutions for rangeland management, traditional norms, social capital and collective actions of nomads essential for rural livelihoods. As part of her dissertation Tungaa examines these social outcomes of formally organized herder groups in comparison to non-formal community groups as indicators of their adaptive capacities and resilience in newly transitioned market economy conditions and changing climate.

2013

Isabella Chan

Isabella Chan is a dual-degree MA/MPH student in applied anthropology and public health at the University of South Florida. She received her BA in anthropology in 2008 from Georgia State University. Her research interests include maternal health, maternal decision-making, the political economy of health, health disparities, the Peruvian Andes, participatory action research, and social justice. Her master’s thesis research focuses on maternal decision-making regarding prenatal care and childbirth in several rural communities in the Peruvian Andes. As a part of her fieldwork, she conducted participatory action research workshops regarding the maternal experience and facilitated the production of community materials aimed at stimulating open conversation between health workers and the local community in an effort to improve care. This work also inspired the formation of a local women’s group that aims to continue with this and other issues uncovered during Isabella’s fieldwork. After completing her MA/MPH, Isabella plans to return to rural Peru to continue working with the women’s group and other community organizations and individuals regarding maternal health and other community-relevant issues.

Amy Samuelson

Amy Samuelson is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her dissertation, which explores environmentalism in the Republic of Moldova, is based on 14 months of ethnographic field research funded largely by a grant from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. It considers the diverse forms of environmentalism that have emerged in Moldova, including rural sanitation initiatives, nature conservation, and urban youth activism. It pays particular attention to the perceived and real divisions between older and younger generations of activists and between urban and rural areas in the context of environmental projects.

Amy has also conducted ethnographic research in Romania as a fellow at the New Europe College in Bucharest and with support from the Council for European Studies. Most recently she has focused on two environmental campaigns fighting the influence of foreign corporations on Romanian communities and local ecologies. One campaign targets a planned gold mine in Transylvania and the other aims to prevent the exploration and exploitation of shale gas reserves using hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in eastern Romania. Amy received her MA in anthropology from Colorado State University. Her master’s thesis examined conservation decision making by agricultural producers in South Dakota.

2012

Sally Applin

Sally Applin is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK, and works within the Centre for Social Anthropology and Computing (CSAC) as well as within the school of Anthropology and Conservation. She holds a Masters degree from the graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program (NYU/ITP) within New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, and a BA in Conceptual Design from San Francisco State University. Sally has had a 20+ year career in the science museum design, computer software, telecommunications, and product design/definition industries working as a Senior UX Designer, Senior Consultant and Ethnographer. Her contributions have included developing exhibit content for the Hong Kong Museum of Science and Technology, conducting field research that led to the development of Go-gurt, and while at Apple Computer, Inc., Sally worked on one of the first Virtual Museum projects in the world.

At Kent, Sally is advised by Dr. Michael D. Fischer, Professor of Anthropological Sciences. Dr. Fischer is the founder of AnthroPunk, a movement that examines how people promote, manage, resist and endure change and create the context of the individuation of their experiences. Sally is a founding member of AnthroPunk and is also a member of IoT Council, a think tank for the Internet of Things.

Sally's work is driven by a motivation to understand how technology effects our lives--and by how the things and processes and systems that we make (and remake) shape our world. She is currently researching the impact of technology on culture, and the consequent inverse: specifically the reifications of Network Space in Personal Space. Her primary focus has been on a descriptive framework called PolySocial Reality (PoSR) (developed with Dr. Fischer), that models the aggregate of all the experienced 'locations' and 'communications' of all individual people in multiple networks at the same or different times.

Sally's background has provided her with a deep foundation in design for technology and anthropology is now providing the framework within which to situate human relations to technology. Sally hopes to continue to research how people reconcile the network with their lives as a contributor within applied industry.

Her paper at SfAA, "Blurry Borders and Blended Boundaries: PolySocial Reality in Digitally Individuated Communities" with Dr. Fischer, examines ways that those developing the social mobile web, might be able to contribute a solution that will defragment any unnecessary multiplexed network connections, and enable capabilities that integrate communities (in both grounded reality and network space).

Kyra Busch

Kyra Busch has just completed a Masters of Environmental Science in Social Ecology of Conservation and Development at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. While at Yale, her studies focused on sustainable food systems, environmental justice and community-based development. Throughout her studies, she was privileged to work with communities all over the globe to address their particular environmental concerns including: a women’s agricultural cooperative in India; Papua New Guinea’s permanent mission to the United Nations; a farming community in Costa Rica; and the delegation of The Maldives to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Her Master’s research involved working with two distinct communities. She first lived in Kuna Yala, Panama, observing the indigenous community’s impressive bilingual and intercultural public school curriculum that has pioneered the integration of traditional ecological knowledge. Inspired by the Kuna and their educational model, Kyra created an agricultural history and food justice curriculum for U.S. students that she piloted at Common Ground High School in New Haven, CT. This research was supported by the Yale Agrarian Studies Program, Tropical Research Institute, Center for Latin American and Iberian Studies and President’s Public Service Fellowship. Kyra received her B.A. in Environmental and Social Justice and Political Science from Indiana University and is a Switzer Environmental Fellow.

2011

Christine M. Beitl

Christine M. Beitl is a doctoral candidate of ecological and environmental anthropology at the University of Georgia. Her areas of interest include sustainability science, economic anthropology, maritime anthropology, conservation, development, community resource management, fisheries, the problem of the commons, and collective action. Her dissertation focuses on the role of collective action—or cooperation for a common goal—in resource sustainability and social-ecological resilience in mangrove fishing communities affected by shrimp farming on the Ecuadorian coast. Focusing on the fishery for the mangrove cockle (Anadara spp.), she has been collaborating with communities and fishery scientists from Ecuadorian institutions to study how people organize around the use of common pool resources during two years of field research supported by the National Science Foundation, Wenner Gren Foundation, and the Fulbright Student Program. Throughout the research process she has organized community workshops to encourage cross-scale collaborations and to ultimately integrate science and culture for the design of more effective participatory fishery policies in Ecuador.

Christine has an M.A. in Latin American studies with a concentration in environmental studies from Florida International University. Since 2004, she has conducted research on ecotourism, the sugar industry, migration, conservation and development in different parts of Latin America including Ecuador, Mexico, Dominican Republic, and Bolivia. Since coming to UGA, she has served as a teaching assistant in the Anthropology Department and on the UGA study abroad programs in the South Pacific for a field course in “sustaining human societies and the natural environment” designed to introduce first and second year undergraduate students to the concept of sustainability within an international context. She has also served as managing editor and manuscript editor for the Anthropology Department’s student-run, open-access, online peer-reviewed scholarly journal, Ecological and Environmental Anthropology.

Paul Roge

Paul Roge is a PhD candidate at UC Berkeley in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (ESPM). Paul received his BS in Conservation and Resource Studies from UC Berkeley. At different moments, Paul has been an organic farmer in the Salinas Valley of California, a collective member of an anarchist vermicomposting organization, and an activist with the Landless Rural Workers' Movement in Brazil. Paul's interests most relate to the field of Agroecology, the science of sustainable agriculture. He combines his interdisciplinary background in natural and social sciences to study complex smallholder farming systems in Latin America. Paul strives to conduct participatory research that benefits and interests local collaborators.

Paul's dissertation research focuses on supporting rural communities that practice rainfed agriculture to cope with climatic variability. His research is the result of a two-year collaboration with the farmer-led civil association the Center for Integral Farmer Development of the Mixteca Alta (CEDICAM) in Oaxaca, Mexico . His dissertation falls into three sections: within-field experiments that compare the productivity of maize-bean-squash polycultures with organic soil fertility management to monocultures of maize with synthetic fertilizers; participatory workshops that explore the resilience of different farming systems; and documentation of community-led stewardship of natural resources. His dissertation research is made possible
by the Garcia Robles - Fulbright scholarship, UC MEXUS, and UC Berkeley.

2010

Melissa A. Beske

Melissa A. Beske is currently a Ph.D. Candidate and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana.  She received her B.A. from Vanderbilt University in 2004 and her M.A. from Tulane University in 2007, both in Anthropology.  Following three seasons as a supervisor with the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project from 2002-2004 in San Ignacio, Cayo, Belize, Melissa began working in 2005 alongside a locally-based NGO, Cornerstone Foundation, to address the pervasive community prevalence of intimate partner violence.   At that time she decided to focus her efforts on helping to establish Belize’s second domestic violence shelter, and following continued investigations and activism from 2006-2007, her dissertation research from 2008-2009 combined front-line advocacy work with theoretical analysis of intimate partner violence in Cayo, as she worked in collaboration with the newly-formed NGO, Mary Open Doors, which finally opened the country’s second shelter for abuse survivors in 2008. 

In addition to a widespread incidence survey and interviews with members of diverse sectors of society (survivors, reformed perpetrators, governmental officials, NGO workers, police officers, judicial personnel, and medical practitioners), she facilitated a weekly-meeting  support group for concerned citizens in San Ignacio in 2008 entitled Women at Work (WAW), which provides an economically sustainable option for survivors attempting to leave abusive relationships by means of producing weavings and jewelry to sell at local markets in order to gain financial independence from their perpetrators.   Nominated as being the most influential women’s group in the country by the Women’s Department in 2009, WAW continues to meet to engage in community outreach, fundraising for the shelter, and craft production to facilitate survivor assistance.  While currently teaching, Melissa is also in the process of writing her doctoral dissertation with hopes that it will be able to serve as a useful tool to further assist advocates in Cayo in creating a more peaceful community.

In addition to her work in Belize, Melissa has also engaged in research with indigenous medical practitioners in Carhuaz, Peru, in their struggle to continue traditional midwifery procedures despite a governmental push for increasingly biomedically focused births, and additionally with street musicians in New Orleans, as they have endeavored to survive and thrive both pre and post-Hurricane Katrina.

Allison Hopkins

Allison Hopkins earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology at the University of Florida in December 2009.  She received a B.S. in Botany and Plant Pathology and an M.A. in Anthropology from Michigan State University and Iowa State University, respectively.  She is currently applying for jobs that will allow her to continue to pursue her research interests in the relationship between cultural knowledge systems, behavior and social change, and the integration of quantitative and qualitative research methods.  She has received funding for her research and education pursuits from the National Science Foundation (DDIG and IGERT), United States Department of Education (FLAS), and the universities she has attended.   

Allison’s doctoral research focused on the acquisition, transmission and distribution of herbal remedy knowledge among the Maya in Tabi, Yucatan, Mexico.  The results of her research show that initial acquisition of herbal remedy knowledge coincides with having children and the process of knowledge acquisition continues to occur until the age of 45.  In addition, herbal remedy knowledge is transmitted from acquaintances, friends, family, and herbalists to the learner.  These patterns correspond with other communities which, like Tabi, have experienced the influences of modernization and globalization.  A portion of this study is the focus of her presentation at this year’s SfAA meeting.  Prior to Allison’s doctoral studies she carried out her master’s research on medical decision making by women for their reproductive health issues in Las Minas, a rural community in Panama.  In particular she sought to determine what role herbal remedies, a treatment option typical in folk healing systems, played in treatment of illness in a community with increasing access to biomedical health care.  The results showed, although herbal remedies continue to be utilized widely in Las Minas, explanations of the healing process had shifted from the folk healing system to the biomedical system over the last generation.

2009

Gabi Aguero

Gabi Aguero was born in Cordoba, Argentina. She then immigrated to Canada where she has lived for more than half of her life. Gabriela has finished coursework at the University of Manitoba in Canada and will be hopefully commencing fieldwork in a year or two. During that time she hopes to train in film in Winnipeg to develop her training as an artist with an added ethnographic component. Gabi holds a B.F.A. Honours from the University of Manitoba and a M.F.A from Louisiana State University.  She held a Canada Council Grant for emerging artists and was funded by the Organization of American States through graduate art school. Her career as an artist was on its way with shows around the world and several awards, but Gabi took the next fifteen years off to concentrate on mothering her four children (no degree was awarded here). During that period she worked as a peace activist teaching workshops, organizing peace events and doing graduate work for a PhD in conflict resolution that she left for anthropology while reading ethnography of children in war. Her present research entitled Children Making Movies in Colombia: Budding Grassroots’ Activism Peacebuilding with Imagination will explore through participatory collaborative methodologies how children craft their political, social and lived worlds amidst conflict. The children’s audiovisual school is located in southwestern Colombia. Gabi met the children through a blog while writing a paper on peace, art and war in Colombia to be presented at a conference and it was love at first e-mail. The children and Gabi are involved in several collaborative art projects worldwide and have plans to do a collaborative ethnographic film as part of her dissertation. They met last summer during the inauguration of the new school building and keep in touch through the web on a daily basis.

Dana E. Powell

Dana E. Powell is currently a Royster Fellow and PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She received her B.A. in Religious Studies from Guilford College and her M.A. in Anthropology from UNC-Chapel Hill. Her research interests include the anthropology of North America, ethnography of development, political ecology, social movements, science and technology studies, feminism, identity and subjectivity, critical indigenous studies, and engaged scholarship. Her dissertation project is on the cultural politics of energy development on the Navajo Nation in the U.S. Southwest and the ways in which specific environmental controversies become sites for understanding different regimes of knowledge and nature. Dana has received support for her graduate studies from the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Jacobs Fund, and both the University Center for International Studies and The Graduate School at UNC-Chapel Hill. In addition to her research, coursework, and teaching, she is an active member of the Social Movements Working Group and the Center for Integrating Research and Action (CIRA) at UNC-Chapel Hill. 

2008

Andria Timmer

Andria Timmer is a PhD candidate in cultural anthropology at the University of Iowa.  She received her BA in anthropology, with an emphasis on applied anthropology, from the University of North Texas in 2001, and holds master’s degrees in cultural anthropology and public health (community and behavioral health), both from the University of Iowa.  Her research concerns the activities of civil sector organizations to address the needs of ethnic and economic minorities.  Towards the completion of her master’s degree, Andria conducted field research in Nicaragua focusing on the work of nongovernmental organizations in their efforts to alleviate childhood malnutrition.  The basis for this research was the different discursive strategies used by NGOs and parents of malnourished children.   She began her dissertation research looking at health related NGOs in Hungary, which is the focus of her presentation at this year’s conference, but she shifted to look at education NGOs.  In her dissertation, she analyzes how the Roma/Gypsy minority in Hungary are segregated in the education system and the manner in which nongovernmental and civil sector organizations are currently attempting to integrate schooling.  The purpose of this research is to understand the societal and policy level measures that have supported and maintained a segregated system, assess the activities undertaken by those organizations working to rectify the situation, and provide a working model for effective NGO action.

Ronald Hector A. Villanueva

Hecky is a doctoral candidate in anthropology with a minor in management and policy at the U. of Arizona.  He was also a graduate research assistant at the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology (BARA), U. of Arizona on two projects.  The first was the e-development project with Dr. Jim Greenberg and Dr. Mamadou Baro, who explored how information and communication technologies (ICT) can complement development strategies to enhance the livelihoods of the poor.  The initial focus was in  the Philippines and Senegal.  The second project was with Dr. Diane Austin, who evaluated alternative cooking, heating, and housing technologies and strategies for colonias in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico for possible replication in the U.S.-Mexico border region. 

His dissertation research is on the fast expanding social movement known as Gawad Kalinga (Filipino for “to give care”) that seeks to build 700,000 homes, in seven thousand communities, in seven years.  Many of the Gawad Kalinga sites are in Metro Manila, Philippines, where he lived and worked until his entry into the doctorate program in 2003.  Professionally, he brings more than a dozen years of work experience in both the public (regulatory) and private (research and consulting) sectors.  His work covered research, project management, conflict resolution, process documentation, and impact assessment. He worked, lived, and struggled in an environment characterized, at one time or another, as a dictatorship, revolutionary (People Power I & II), coup d’état- plagued, mired in economic difficulties, and conflict-ridden.   Nevertheless, he says he is privileged to have met, worked with, and learned from some of the most dedicated educators, professionals, environmentalists, and human rights activists.  He has worked with communities of all types from indigenous cultural communities to farmers, fishermen, and urbanized communities, all of whom have been warm, helpful, and sincere despite social, political, and economic difficulties.  

He currently heads a foundation that seeks to map the “green” areas of Metropolitan Manila under the auspices of the Green Map System (New York).  He continues to work with social movements focused on nation building such as Gawad Kalinga and RockEd Philippines.  He has undertaken EARA-approved EMS and ISO 14000 Team Leader training courses.  He is an accredited EIA-preparer in the Philippines. He was the Editor of the Arizona Anthropologist for Issue 17.

2007

Amy Cooper

Amy Cooper is a Ph.D. student in the University of Chicago’s Department of Comparative Human Development. She received her B.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University in 1998, and completed a Master’s degree in social sciences at the University of Chicago in 2004. Amy is training in cultural anthropology at the University of Chicago, focusing on the anthropology of health and medicine in Latin America. In 2004, Amy traveled to Havana, Cuba, where she conducted research for her Master’s paper on Cuban reactions to an uncertain future, focusing on how those reactions are manifested in discourses of stress, anxiety, and depression. There she became interested in Cuban models of community health and in Cuban medical diplomacy abroad, and particularly interested in how Cuban models were being appropriated and adapted in other Latin American countries. Thus, in 2006, Amy traveled to Venezuela to study the transformations in public health programs, and the complex relations between the Venezuelan state and its citizens upon which these programs act. Her dissertation will investigate these community based public health programs as state projects of social change in Caracas. She is focusing on how individuals, marginalized communities, and the Venezuelan state mobilize a discourse of ‘social reintegration’ in an attempt to transform neighborhoods and produce healthy citizens.

Namino Glantz

Namino Glantz’ interest in culture and equity was born during her residence on the Navajo Nation in Arizona (1983-1987).  Having spent her childhood in New England, her family’s move to the reservation marked a life turning point.  For the first time, she lived among a minority group while living as a minority herself, one of few non-Navajo teens in the heart of the reservation.  She learned about discrimination and diversity, balance and beauty, listening, and learning itself.  Her interest in anthropology surged. Ms. Glantz’ B.A. in anthropology from Stanford University provided her with academic depth and the opportunity to live and do research in Santiago, Chile (1990) and Chiapas, Mexico (1989-1992), with guidance from anthropologist-Latin Americanist George A. Collier.  During her subsequent long-term residence (1994-2000) in Comitán, Chiapas, Ms. Glantz worked as a researcher and project coordinator at a non-profit center for health research (Centro de Investigaciones en Salud de Comitán, CISC).  Years of work on equity in health prompted her to complement practical experience with focused instruction in medical anthropology, public health, international health, and gender, via an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Arizona under the mentorship of medical anthropologist Mark Nichter.  As an applied medical anthropologist, Ms. Glantz now strives to understand the role of culture in health, illness, and healing, and apply this insight to improve well-being.  For her Ph.D., she returned to Chiapas to address the emerging need for elder health research and intervention.  She used formative research to initiate local dialogue about elder health needs and engaged local social scientists, service providers, and elders as co-collaborators in elder health service reforms. 

2006

Sue Harness

Susan Harness, a American Indian transethnic adoptee, will discuss the cultural environments American Indian transethnic adoptees face, both when they are raised, and when they attempt to “return home”.  Each cultural environment, or system, is defined by specific boundaries, constructed of social memories.  These systems of thought make it difficult for the adoptee to “fit in”, phenotypically within the Euro-American system, and culturally in the American Indian system.  Her analysis illustrates this difficulty and how adoptees have attempted to negotiate a sense of belonging.

Garrett Alexandrea McDowell

My mantra is perhaps best described by Lewis W. Hine: “show the things that have to be appreciated.” It was while attending Rhodes College and conducting a service-learning life history project in one of my anthropology courses that I discovered how my love of taking pictures can contribute to anthropological research. Ever since then, my goal has been clear: to learn about those who are different from myself, whether they are on my street corner or across the world, and to share my understanding with others. I began working towards this goal by developing photographic skills and earning a master’s degree in visual communication from the University of Texas at Austin. Currently I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Temple University. As a visual anthropologist, I use my camera equally with other research tools.

For my dissertation research, I am measuring the effects of transnationalism on the identity formation of Japanese immigrants in Latin America through a study of intermarriage. Recent developments have led to massive return-migration of Nikkei (people of Japanese descent) in Latin America back to Japan. The effects of this mass exodus on sending communities are enormous yet neglected. Using marriage as a lens through which to analyze identity formation, I am comparatively examining the context and impacts of out-migration on the cases of Nikkei in Chiapas, Mexico and Lima, Peru, with particular attention to how marriage and identity are formed, reformed and transformed as these communities (and marriage options) are depleted. In the paper I will be presenting at the SfAA meetings in Vancouver, I examine the complex construction of self and home that are important elements in understanding contemporary East Asian migration. Attendance at the SfAA annual meeting will allow me to share my concerns over culture contact, ethnic identity and the persistence of difference, and to learn from others’ perspectives.

2005

Geralyn Hoffman

Geralyn Hoffman received her B.A. in Anthropology and Archaeology from Boston University in 2000.  Geralyn will receive her Master’s degree in the department of Anthropology at San Diego State University in May 2005.  Some of her course work has also been in the Department of Education.  Geralyn has a deep interest in sharing her knowledge of archaeology while working with children and has devoted her Master’s thesis research toward that goal.  Since the fall of 2003, Geralyn has been the Education Coordinator for the Archaeology Education Outreach Program, which is part of the Collections Management Program in the Department of Anthropology.  As the coordinator, Geralyn has given over 200 presentations about archaeology and Kumeyaay culture in San Diego classrooms.  In the course of her visits, she learned that third and fourth grade teachers were required by state curriculum standards to cover the culture of the local Kumeyaay.  However, the Kumeyaay are not mentioned in the state’s textbooks, leaving teachers to do the research themselves.  She noticed that many third and fourth grade teachers found it difficult to find helpful resources.

Geralyn began working toward developing a one-stop resource for teachers.  This resource is a culture box that teachers can check out to use in the classroom.  The box consists of an informational booklet, written for teachers, photographs, maps, a video, an audiotape, and ethnographic items such as sandals.  Prior to its development, she researched the archaeology and ethnography of the Kumeyaay and other California Indians.  She has also researched Native American stereotypes and their presence in the schools.  Geralyn has studied current curricula and educational issues.  She has evaluated existing teacher resources about the Kumeyaay and current third and fourth grade textbooks.  During the development process, Geralyn consulted with third and fourth grade teachers at San Diego City Schools and members of the Kumeyaay community.  Both teachers and Kumeyaay offered their suggestions prior to the creation of the culture box and subsequently reviewed the completed box.  This consultation ensured that culture box materials would add to the classroom curriculum but would also be deemed accurate and appropriate for classroom use.  This has been a very successful project that has been appreciated by San Diego’s educators and members of the Kumeyaay community.

Krissy Hudgins

I received my Bachelors degree from St. Mary’s College of Maryland in 1999 in Anthropology and Sociology.  After spending four years in Maryland’s community mental health system, I decided to return to school to pursue my Masters degree in cultural anthropology.  I received my Masters in May of this year from the University of South Carolina, Columbia, and will be continuing on for the PhD program at USC.  Going back to school has given me the opportunity to work on projects that I might not otherwise have been able to be a part of.  My thesis project gave me the chance to work toward making a tangible difference for Latino/a immigrants with a limited proficiency in English living in the Columbia, South Carolina, area with regard to their use of the public transportation system.  My graduate assistantship with the Language for Healthcare Access project over the past year has provided me the opportunity to broaden my scope in regard to my research interests through contacts made with Latino/a immigrant communities around the state of South Carolina.  This has given rise to new interests in Latino/a immigrants who work as farm workers and within the poultry industry in South Carolina.  I hope to develop a research project that delves into the political, economic, and health aspects of farm work and immigrant labor with a particular focus on women’s roles within these industries.  I am looking forward to exploring issues identified by participants as being the most salient for them in order to engage in a project that is participatory in nature. I would like to extend a thank you to the 2005 Edmund H. and Rosamond B. Spicer award committee for giving me the opportunity to present at my first national meeting as well as providing me the chance to meet people with similar topical interests as well as having a commitment to social justice. 

2004

Teressa Trusty

Growing up in Oregon during the height of the controversy over old-growth forests and their most well-known inhabitant, the northern spotted owl, I witnessed first-hand the often adverse effect of conservation efforts on local people. I wanted to preserve parts of our forests for their beauty and other benefits, but I also saw the other side of the debate as people lost their jobs, their homes, their families, and even took their lives during the controversy. These experiences and my thoughts about the timber crisis caused me to question my environmental beliefs and the approach to conservation and development that often overlooks or ignores the people impacted by these projects.

After receiving a B.S. in Earth Systems from Stanford University in 1995 and working in the fields of international conservation, education, and technology development in the U.S. and abroad, I returned to graduate school in the PhD. program in Environmental Anthropology at the University of Washington in the fall of 2002 in order to address my concerns about conservation and development both in the Pacific Northwest and in Latin America.

Currently, I am pursuing two research projects in the Pacific Northwest which explore  the human dimensions of conservation and development projects. Last summer, I began ethnographic research in a former logging town in Oregon which is currently struggling with issues related to community and economic development. In the paper I will present at the SfAA meetings in Dallas, I examine the development processes underway in the community and begin to explore the inclusions and exclusions of people, projects, and places from these development initiatives. In a separate project which my advisor Dr. Eugene Hunn and I have undertaken in conjunction with the Pacific Northwest Research Station, a division of the U.S. Forest Service, I am part of a team exploring the formation of judgments about riparian management on Federal lands in Central Washington. Literature from political ecology, the anthropology of place, the social construction of nature, and environmental history informs my work.

James Thrasher

Jim Thrasher holds Masters degrees in cultural anthropology and epidemiology and is currently a PhD student in the Department of Health Behavior at the University of North Carolina’s School of Public Health.  His general professional interest is in bridging the methodological and theoretical divide between anthropology and public health.  To this end, he teaches a course which helps graduate students from throughout the School of Public Health use anthropological theory, concepts, and methods to frame their understanding of and attempts to address public health issues.  In his dissertation, Jim draws from anthropological and sociological theories of late modernity, consumption, identity, and globalization to conceptualize the workings of tobacco prevention messages that focus on the deceitful practices of the tobacco industry.  This research begins with a focus on how these messages resonate among “high-risk” US youth with weak attachments to the primary socialization mechanisms in US society and/or who are predisposed to distrust corporations.  Then, through qualitative research and analysis, Jim illuminates areas of caution and opportunities for synergy when attempting to translate industry-focused tobacco prevention messages to Mexico, given pre-existing values, expectations, and identity concerns among Mexican youth.  This research agenda explicitly builds anthropological perspectives into Jim’s experiences working in health communication both at the CDC and as a member of the interdisciplinary team evaluating the national, mass-media truth^® campaign.  His research also reflects his commitment to engaging with some of the nefarious consequences of contemporary globalization processes.  He hopes that this research trajectory will inform future public health efforts that are focused on consumption practices.

2003

Andrew Gardner

Andrew Gardner is a PhD candidate in cultural anthropology at the University of Arizona. He completed an MA in anthropology at the same institution, and took a degree in Philosophy from the George Washington University in 1991. A portion of his thesis, concerning the historical role of social capital in the trucking sector of the Louisiana oilpatch, won the Peter K. New Student Paper Award from the SfAA, and has subsequently been published in Human Organization. He has forthcoming articles based on his work in Saudi Arabia, and has conducted fieldwork and published a number of reports for the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology and for TANGO (Technical Assistance to Non-Governmental Organizations). His research interests include political ecology, social capital, transnationalism and migration, international development, and, in a general sense, cultural theory. To support these varied research interests, he has worked with a number of mentors and advisors at the University of Arizona, including Dr. Timothy Finan, Dr. Diane Austin, Dr. Tom McGuire, Dr. Tom Weaver, Dr. Michael Bonine, and Dr. Linda Green.

Mr. Gardner is currently conducting his dissertation fieldwork in Bahrain. Under a Fulbright Grant, and with additional support from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, he is exploring the complex and historical relationship between the Indian diaspora and the native Arab and Persian populations of the island. With a foreign population nearly equal to that of its citizenry, Bahrain has configured a particular suite of policies to manage and structure this diaspora. Seemingly subtle nuances in this policy configuration, however, have had great influence upon the social and cultural topography of the island, and despite the many difficulties of transnational life, it remains the most desirable endpoint for Gulf migrants.

Dana Tottenham Warren

I graduated from Emory University in 1998 with a B.A. in English and Spanish. Upon graduation, I worked in several positions in the field of international education and study abroad. I served as a study abroad advisor at Emory while working closely with other colleagues to promote international exchange and area studies. I advised both U.S. study abroad students as well as international exchange students coming to the U.S for short-term study opportunities. As my interest in the field continued to grow, I decided to pursue my M.A. in Anthropology at Georgia State University. I am currently a graduate research assistant to the Proyecto Juventud, an ongoing longitudinal research project that focuses on the school adju! stment, filial responsibility and identity development of Latino immigrant youth in metropolitan Atlanta. The research project involves an interdisciplinary team of faculty and graduate students in Community and Clinical Psychology, Anthropology, Education, and Social Work. Within the context of this project, my M.A. thesis research focuses on English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Latino students and their adaptation to the American school system.

2002

Melissa A. Checker

Melissa Checker is a doctoral candidate in cultural anthropology at New York University. She conducted her dissertation fieldwork with a group of African American environmental justice activists in Augusta, Georgia. Her areas of interest are environmental justice, race, ethnicity and class in the U.S., social movements, and urban anthropology. She currently lives in Orlando, Florida where she is finishing her dissertation.

Sarah M. Otterstrom

Sarah M. Otterstrom is a Ph.D. candidate in Ecology at the University of California, Davis. Her dissertation research focuses on the cultural and ecological role of fire in the tropical dry forest ecosystems of Nicaragua. In part, her research investigates the knowledge and perception of fire within rural communities and fire use in subsistence activities. As part of her fieldwork, she carried out training workshops with local people to increase fire safety and reduce wildfire risk. Currently, she is very active with conservation initiatives at her field site in the Chococente Wildlife Refuge, Nicaragua. She is working with private landowners to establish a non-profit organization whose role will be to manage and protect forests, while allowing local people to have sustainable access to biodiversity resources (i.e. firewood, medicinal plants). The protected land will form part of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor. She also supports regional conservation actions through her leadership within the Mesoamerican Society for Biology and Conservation, an organization composed primarily of students from Central American nations. Sarah has nearly 10 years of experience in Central America where she hopes to continue working in conservation and rural development.

2001

Rebecca S. Toupal

Rebecca S. Toupal, MLA is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Renewable Natural Resources at the University of Arizona. She has a B.S. in Forestry/Range Management from the University of Montana and a Master in Landscape Architecture from the University of Arizona. For her MLA thesis, she conducted an investigation of successful conservation partnerships in the western United States from which she subsequently published an article in the High Plains Applied Anthropologist (Toupal 2000). She has worked with the former USDA Soil Conservation Service as a Soil Conservationist and Resource Specialist on resource conservation and development projects involving rural and Native American communities. She has worked with the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology (BARA) for the past three years on ethnohistoric and ethnographic research with Native American groups in the southwest U.S., with Scandinavian fisherman from Isle Royale National Park, Michigan, and with Tohono O' odham elders and comtemporary offiicials in southern Arizona. Her dissertation research in an investigation of the potential use of cultural landscape concepts for natural resource management purposes.

Her teaching experience includes field-based natural resource workshops with farmers, ranchers, Native Americans and K-12 students; as a Teaching Assistant for a graduate-level geographic information system land use planning course, and for an undergraduate course in social impacts on wildlife management. She has guest lectured in cultural resource management and policy for an undergraduate natural resource management and policy class; and in conservation partnerships for a graduate environmental planning class.

Alayne Unterberger

Alayne Unterberger is an applied medical anthropologist and full time PhD student at the University of Florida. Her MA advisor and mentor, Dr. Gilbert Kushner, Professor Emeritus at USF, was mentored by Dr. Edward "Ned" Spicer, for whom this award is named. Since receiving her MA in applied anthropology from the University of South Florida in 1993, she has done extensive research with latino populations in Florida. Her dissertation research examines the impact of Mexico-US migration on mental and physical health status in both a sending community (Guanajuato Mexico) and a receiving community (Wimauma, Florida), where she has worked for the last 10 years. Currently she serves as the Student Board Member to NAPA, part of the AAA.

Ms. Unterberger was the recipient of the 1998 USF Department of Anthropology Distinguished Alumni Award and her work with farmworker health has earned her local recognition and two national awards (1998 Sydney Lee Migrant Health Research Award from Migrant Clinicians Network and the 1997 Border Health Education and Training Centers Program of Excellence Award from National Area Health Education Centers). In 2000, the 300 children and parents of the Rural Youth Soccer Association presented Ms. Unterberger with an award for "helping them to make their dream a reality."