UAF Department of Anthropology Contact Information

 

Faculty

 

Petra Banks Term Assistant Professor	PhD, Texas State University, 2024. Forensic Anthropology, Skeletal Trauma, Blast Trauma, Mass Disasters, Disaster Victim Identification, Forensic Archaeology, Bioarchaeology, Historic Cemeteries, 3D Imaging	401 Bunnell  pmbanks@alaska.edu 907-474-6755
Tammy Buonasera Assistant Professor	PhD, University of Arizona, 2013. Biomolecular archaeology (proteomics, lipid analysis, and stable isotopes), past diets and health, economic and social aspects of food processing technologies, hunter-gatherer archaeology, experimental archaeology, gender, human behavioral ecology, California, northern Alaska, Anatolia.	307C Bunnell  tybuonasera@alaska.edu 907-474-6758
Justin Cramb Assistant Professor	PhD, University of Georgia, 2020. Zooarchaeology, Cultures of Island Oceania, the Alaska Gold Rush, Historical Archaeology, Radiocarbon Dating, Environmental Archaeology, Historical Ecology, Animal Translocation.	305B Bunnell  jecramb@alaska.edu 907-474-5911
Elaine Drew Associate Professor Department Chair	PhD, University of Kentucky, 2004. Culturally-based health promotion and intervention research with AI/AN, Latino, and African-American communities; mixed methods research; research ethics review processes (institutional & community-based).	407 Bunnell  emdrew@alaska.edu 907-474-1988
Kara C. Hoover Professor  Associated Faculty, Chemistry and Biochemistry	PhD, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, 2001. Bioarchaeology of hunter-gatherers, Paleo-population biology (diet, nutrition, developmental stress), Ancient hominin paelogenetics, Human olfactory evolution and contemporary variation, Japan, UK, Eurasia.	404 Bunnell  kchoover@alaska.edu 907-474-6110
Sveta Yamin-Pasternak Assistant Professor	PhD, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2007. Food and culture, ethnomycology, aesthetics, Circumpolar North, contemporary art, gender, post-Soviet studies	305B Bunnell  syamin@alaska.edu 907-474-6188
Patrick Plattet Professor	PhD, University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland), 2005. Ritual, anthropology of festive events, cultural resources documentation, ethnohistory, online teaching of ethnographic methods, Alaska/Kamchatka.	307D Bunnell  pplattet@alaska.edu 907-474-6608
Ben A. Potter Professor	PhD, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2005. Subarctic and Arctic archaeology, intersite variability, site structure and organization, spatial analysis, geographic information systems, human-environmental interactions, field survey and excavation, cultural resource management, multivariate statistical analyses, lithic analysis, faunal analysis.	308A Bunnell  bapotter@alaska.edu 907-474-7567
Joshua D. Reuther Curator of Archaeology, University of Alaska Museum of the North; Professor	PhD, University of Arizona, 2013. Subarctic and arctic archaeology; geoarchaeology; geochronology; hunter-gatherer ecology; archaeological science; museum studies; cultural resources management.	042 Museum of the North  jreuther@alaska.edu 907-474-6945
Robin A. Shoaps Associate Professor with joint appointment in Linguistics	PhD, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2004. Linguistic anthropology, ritual language, discourse, power, semiotics, ethnography of morality, stance, human-animal relations, political media; Mesoamerica and the United States.	312 Bunnell  rashoaps@alaska.edu 907-474-6884

 

 

Adjunct Faculty

 

Julie Esdale

Ph.D. (anthropology), Brown University. Arctic archaeology, geoarchaeology, and lithic analysis.

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David Lukaszek

M.A. (Anthropology) University of Montana, 2004. Evolutionary Theory, Fossil Hominins, Osteology, Biomechanics, and Bipedalism, Taxonomy and Epistemology

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Howard Maxwell

M.A. (anthropology), University of Alaska Fairbanks, 1987. Instructor, Rural Alaska Honors Institute, UAF.

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Howard Smith

M.A. (anthropology), University of Utah, 1975. Field Office Archaeologist (retired), Bureau of Land Management. Cultural resource management, Arctic and northwest Alaska, Alaska mining history.

 

 

Affiliated Faculty

 

Nancy Bigelow

Affiliate Research Professor; Ph.D. (paleoecology) University of Alaska Fairbanks,1997. Research Associate, Alaska Quaternary Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks. Quaternary paleoecology, palynology, Beringian environments

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Courtney Carothers

Assistant Professor of Fisheries; Ph.D. (anthropology) University of Washington, 2008. Environmental anthropology, political ecology, marine policy, fishing communities

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Jamie Clark

Affiliate Professor of Anthropology; Ph.D. (paleoecology) University of Michigan, 2009. Paleolithic archaeology, modern human origins, hunter-gatherer lifeways, zooarchaeology. Southern Africa and the Near East

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David Fazzino 

Affiliate Assistant Professor; Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, Anthropology Department, Faculty Member.  Medical Anthropology, and Food Systems.

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Patty A. Gray

Affiliate Associate Professor; Ph.D. (cultural anthropology), University of Wisconsin at Madison, 1998. Political and economic anthropology, social movements, transformation in post-Soviet rural communities, reindeer herding systems; rural European Russia, Russian Far North, Alaska.

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Carrin Halffman

Affiliate Research Assistant Professor, Ph.D. (anthropology). University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2009. Biological anthropology, bone stable isotope analysis, past human diet, archaeological toxicology, Arctic and sub-Arctic populations

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Charles E. Holmes

Affiliate Research Professor; Ph.D. (anthropology) Washington State University, 1984. Beringian archaeology, Subarctic cultural adaptations, Athabascan archaeology, lithic analysis.

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Anne M. Jensen

Affiliate Research Assistant Professor. Ph.D. (anthropology), Bryn Mawr College, 2009. Long-term ecodynamics of socio-natural systems in Arctic and subarctic environments, coastal adaptations, global change effects on the archaeological and paleoecological record, zooarchaeology, community archaeology

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Michael Koskey

Associate Professor of Cross-Cultural and Indigenous Studies; Ph.D. (anthropology) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2003. Oral history, traditional and local knowledge, ethnohistory, culture change, food sovereignty, decolonization, political economy, resource use and allocation, community-based research, Indigenous cosmology/mythology.

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Amber Lincoln

Collections Manager, LA County Natural History Museum. Ph.D. (Anthropology), University of Aberdeen, 2011. Northern anthropology, material culture, ethnohistory and phenomenology.

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David Alexander Lukaszek

Affiliate Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Ph.D. (Anthropology) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2017. Biological Anthropology, Osteology, Biomechanics, Evolutionary Theory, Fossil Hominins, Taxonomy, and Epistemology.

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Holly J. McKinney

Affiliate Research Professor; Ph.D. (anthropology) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2013; Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (DOT&PF) Cultural Resource Specialist; Faunal, Taphonomic, Lithic, and Stable Isotopic Analyses; Fisheries; Subarctic, Arctic, and Pacific Northwest Coast Archaeology; Excavation Methods; Multivariate Statistical Analyses; Human Behavioral Ecology; NHPA (Section 106), AHPA, and NEPA Compliance. 

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Robin O. Mills

Affiliate Assistant Professor; Ph.D. (anthropology), University of Alaska Fairbanks, 1998. Fairbanks District Archaeologist, Bureau of Land Management. Historical archaeology, mining history, cultural resource management.

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Richard Nelson

Affiliate Research Professor; Ph.D. (anthropology), University of California, Santa Barbara. Indigenous cultures of Alaska, author and natural historian.

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Diane O’Brien

Assistant Associate Professor, Institute for Arctic Biology/Department of Biology and Wildlife. Ph.D. (ecology and evolutionary biology), Princeton University, 1998. Stable isotope ecology, nutritional physiology of insects; understanding patterns of stable isotope variation among biological compounds.

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Rosemarie Plaetke

Affiliate Associate Professor; Ph.D. (statistical genetics), Free University Berlin, Germany 1986. Human genetics - focus on type 2 diabetes and complications, genetic epidemiology - focus on statistics and bioinformatics , genetics of behavior - focus on development of phenotypes for genetic studies, biostatistics.

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Feng Qu

Affiliate faculty; Feng Qu, the founding Director and Professor of Arctic Studies Center at Liaocheng University, China. He is also a professor in archaeology at Nanjing Normal University. He received PhD in anthropology from University of Alaska Fairbanks. He focuses his research on Arctic prehistory and ethnography, shamanism, ritualism, and animism. He has published three monographs including An Exploration of Prehistoric Ontologies in the Bering Strait Region published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2021. He also published numerous research articles, reviews and miscellanea about circumpolar shamanism, eco-cosmologies, and prehistoric religious ideas in both Chinese and English.

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Nicholas Schmuck

Gerad M. Smith

Affiliate Assistant Professor; Ph.D. (anthropology) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2020; Project Archaeologist, Brice Environmental Services Corporation;Traditional Dene Place Name analysis, Lithic Analysis, Taphonomy, Subarctic and Arctic archaeology, Non-linear Complexity Modeling, Human Behavioral Ecology, Site Structure and Intersite Variability, GIS, Ichnological analysis, Photomodeling, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, NHPA (Section 106), AHPA, and NEPA Compliance

 

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William Schneider

Emeritus Professor of Library Science; Ph.D. (anthropology) Bryn Mawr College, 1976.

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Kerrie-Ann Shannon

Affiliate Assistant Research Professor; Ph.D. (anthropology), University of Aberdeen, Northern anthropology.

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Anne D. Shinkwin

Affiliate Professor; Ph.D. (anthropology), University of Wisconsin, 1975. Northern anthropology.

 

 

Emeritus Faculty

 

Charlotte Basham

Associate Professor; PhD (linguistics), University of Michigan, 1986. Discourse analysis, second language acquisition, and contrastive rhetoric.
Phone: 907-474-6884;
Email: ffcsb @ uaf.edu

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Joel D. Irish

Professor, Curator of Biological Anthropology at the UA Museum; Ph.D. (biological anthropology), Arizona State University, 1993. Dental anthropology, paleopathology, human osteology, human variation, bioarchaeology; Africa, Southeast Alaska.
Phone: 907-474-6755
Email: jdirish @ alaska.edu

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David C. Koester

Professor; PhD, University of Chicago, 1990. Culture and history, historical and national consciousness; anthropological study of insult and discursive manipulation of status; early history of ethnography; energy concepts and discourse; Iceland, Russian Far East, North Pacific, circumpolar.
Phone: 907-474-6188
Email: syamin@alaska.edu

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Molly Lee

Professor, Curator of Ethnology at the UA Museum; Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley, 1992. Sociocultural anthropology, Native Alaskan, Eskimo and Inuit art of the historical and contemporary periods.

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Phyllis Morrow

(Former Dean of the College of Liberal Arts), Professor; Ph.D. (social and cultural anthropology), Cornell University, 1987. Linguistic anthropology, socio-legal studies, folklore, Inuit/Yup'ik ethnography, and ritual and symbolism.

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Peter P. Schweitzer

Professor; Ph.D. (anthropology), University of Vienna, 1990. Kinship, Social Organization and Identity Politics; Global Climate Change and Northern Indigenous Communities; Contemporary Hunting and Gathering Societies; History of Anthropological Theory; Methods of Historical Anthropology; Siberia, Alaska, Circumpolar North.
Phone: 907-474-5015;
Email: ppschweitzer @ alaska.edu

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In Memorium

 

Brian Hemphill

Professor PhD, University of Oregon, 1991. Dental Morphology, Odontometrics, Dental Pathology, Skeletal Biology, Biological Distance Analysis, Bioarchaeology, Human Evolution, South Asia, Central Asia, Great Basin, Northwest Coast.

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Patricia B. Kwachka

Professor; Ph.D. (linguistics), University of Florida Gainesville, 1981. Sociolinguistics, language acquisition, language shift, and medical communication. (Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts)