- Associate Professor of Anthropology
- Chair of Anthropology
- Chair of Archaeological Studies
Education
- BA, Oberlin College, 1996
- MA, University of Arizona, 2000
- PhD, University Arizona, 2006
I am an anthropological archaeologist interested in hunter-gatherer ecology, and especially the technological adaptations of foragers living in marine and cold climates.
My most recent research with archaeological collections has taken me to beautiful Kodiak, Alaska , home of Native Alutiiq peoples whose recent ancestors practiced a rich coastal economy. My work on skeletal technologies blends collections analysis with ethnohistory and materials science to better understand the links between technological choices (and change) and raw material properties.
I am also interested in museums and the history of ethnological collecting. Oberlin College houses a unique 19th century ethnological collection that contains roughly 1,600 objects acquired by missionaries and naturalists from a variety of regions, including southern Africa, Micronesia, Thailand, and the North American Arctic.
The following website/database provides background on the collection, images of its contents, and research resources.
I have published on these and related topics in such journals as Museum Anthropology, Ethnoarchaeology, and the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory.
At Oberlin, I teach courses on hunter-gatherers, colonialism, introductory archaeology, and human evolution.