New courses, publications and awards in the Department of Anthropology. See what faculty and students have been up to during the fall term.
Josh Snodgrass and Larry Sugiyama
Larry Sugiyama, Josh Snodgrass, and a bunch of former UO grad students recently had an article from the Shuar project published in the American Journal of Human Biology:
- Gildner TE, Liebert MA, Schrock JM, Urlacher SS, Amir D, Harrington CJ, Madimenos FC, Cepon-Robins TJ, Bribiescas RG, Sugiyama LS, & Snodgrass JJ. Salivary Testosterone, Age, and Adiposity Associations Among Shuar Males in Amazonian Ecuador Challenge Assumptions of ‘Normal’ Testosterone Patterns. American Journal of Human Biology 37: e70166.
Zachary DuBois
New Summer Class: LGBTQ+ Histories & Global Travel.
This short-term summer program invites students to explore the histories, cultures, and contemporary experiences of LGBTQ+ communities in Amsterdam through site visits, reflection, and immersive learning. By engaging with landmarks such as the Homomonument, Anne Frank House, and Europe’s largest LGBTQ+ archive, students examine themes of identity, migration, and social justice. Designed with accessibility and inclusion in mind, the program is especially welcoming to LGBTQ+ and other underrepresented students in study abroad.
Faculty Staff: Professor Judith Raiskin and Professor L. Zachary DuBois
Aletta Biersack
Christina Kreps was awarded a "lifetime achievement award" from the Council for Museum Anthropology. Christina received her PhD in 1994. She has been teaching at the University of Denver ever since and to ever-greater professional acclaim. Her second book, Museums And Anthropology in the Age of Engagement (2019), was written in part while she was a visiting professor in the School of Architecture here. Here is the announcement of her most recent award, from the Council for Museum Anthropology, which will be celebrated at the CMA's Annual Reception and Awards Ceremony at the next American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana.
The Council for Museum Anthropology is very pleased to present its 2025 Distinguished Service Award to our friend and colleague Professor Christina Kreps of the University of Denver. Christina’s extraordinary career has not merely contributed to our field but has fundamentally reshaped theory and practice in museum anthropology, particularly through her global, comparative, and ethical reconsiderations of basic questions central to scholarship on, and scholarship in, museums of ethnography and world cultures. Christina is internationally recognized for establishing a critical, cross-cultural anthropology of museums, consistently pushing us to rethink practices of curation, display, and heritage beyond Eurocentric models.
As her nominator noted compellingly, her landmark 2003 monograph, Liberating Culture, redefined curation, directly challenging Western paradigms and foregrounding the “thriving multiplicity of Indigenous curations.” Christina pioneered what she taught us to call “appropriate museology”—a bottom-up, community-based approach combining local knowledge with professional practices. She has critically influenced new museum anthropologies, chronicling contemporary ethical and political shifts and advocating for a "cosmopolitan museum anthropology" that celebrates a “world full of diverse museologies". Her work directly engages with decolonization, Indigenization, and repatriation—all now central themes in present-day museum anthropology.
In addition to her major intellectual contributions to our work, the Council is also mindful of the many hands-on ways that Christina has also served our section and its members. She, for instance, edited our journal, Museum Anthropology during its crucial transition from print to digital circulation. Another such instance from her large body of work is her coediting the Routledge book series Museum Meanings with Richard Sandell. With thirty-four titles published, this series includes many landmark titles well-known in museum anthropology. We also note that Christina is also among our longest serving anthropology museum directors, having impactfully led the University of Denver Museum of Anthropology since 2000.
Beyond her in-museum leadership and her foundational scholarship, including her book Museums and Anthropology in the Age of Engagement, Professor Kreps is an exceptional educator and mentor. She has guided generations students through the University of Denver’s nationally recognized Museum Studies program, fostering a rigorous, community-engaged curriculum grounded in anthropological ethics. Her students, now global leaders, reflect her inspiring commitment. Through her globally engaged research, boundary-crossing curatorial practice, and generous mentorship, Professor Kreps has truly transformed our field in lasting ways. Given all that she has contributed to the growth and refinement of museum anthropology generally and to the success of the Council for Museum Anthropology specifically, it is more than fitting that we recognize Christina Kreps with the Council’s Distinguished Service Award.
Katelyn McDonough
This month I gave presentations to the Archaeological Society of Central Oregon in Bend and the Oregon Archaeological Society in Portland. It was great fun to meet with community members, archaeologists, and volunteers.
Annalise Gadella
I’m presenting a paper, “Embodied Land Rights: The Limits and Expansions of Environmental Activism Under El Salvador’s Permanent State of Exception,” at American Anthropological Association on Nov. 23.
The Sterner Lab
Megan McNamara and Tanner Anderson both had abstracts accepted for the American Association of Biological Anthropologists (AABA) 2026 conference in Denver, Colorado, in spring 2026.
Gabby Jones
Gabby’s abstract “Assessment of limb proportions in the oldest Theopithecus skeleton, ARI-VP-1/26 from Woranso-Mille, Ethiopia”was accepted for the 95th Annual AABA meeting.
James Munyawera
James’ abstract “Infant Corpse Carrying in Mother and Non-Mother Mountain Gorillas” was accepted for the 95th annual AABA meeting.
Scott Fitzpatrick
Recent publications:
- Thomas P. Leppard, Scott M. Fitzpatrick, and Justin A. Holcomb. 2026. How to Successfully Colonize Space: Lessons from Island Archaeology. Acta Astronautica Volume 238 (Part B): 797-802.
- Scott M. Fitzpatrick. 2025. Leviathan’s Revenge: Seafaring Simulations, Deep History, and the Rise of Computer Modeling. Journal of Maritime Archaeology 20(3).
- Traci Ardren, Michelle LeFebvre, Victor Thompson, Scott M. Fitzpatrick, M. Jessie Schneider†, Jacob L DeWitt, and Elizabeth Horton. 2025. Chronology Building in the Pre-Columbian Florida Keys. Southeastern Archaeology
- Jessica H. Stone, Scott M. Fitzpatrick, Scott Burnett, and John Krigbaum. 2025. A Synthesis of Bioarchaeological Research on Carriacou, Southern Grenadines. In The Routledge Handbook of Bioarchaeology in the Caribbean (Darlene Weston and Yadira Chinique de Armas,eds): 105-120. London: Routledge.
I recently spent a month on a short-term guest professorship at the University of the Balearics in Mallorca, Spain working with a team of island archaeologists on projects related to megalithic construction and exchange systems. I participated in two workshops focused on island archaeobotany and adaptations and gave several lectures in various classes.
Nelson Ting
Two papers I co-authored were recently published. One is a new method for censusing wildlife using genetics, machine learning and individual-based simulations in collaboration with my former grad student Claire Goodfellow and others in our Institute of Ecology and Evolution. The other paper is a perspective on how to handle hybrid populations in conservation planning, which is an outgrowth of my role in the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) Conservation Genetics Specialist Group.
- Patterson, Gilia, et al. "Simulation‐Based Spatially Explicit Close‐Kin Mark–Recapture." Molecular Ecology Resources (2025): e70074.
- Galbusera, Peter, et al. "Hybrids Along a Natural‐Anthropogenic Gradient: Improving Policy and Management Across All Levels of Biodiversity." Conservation Letters 18.6 (2025): e13158.
Philippa Jorissen
The Museum Studies Certificate is offering an information event about the certificate. Details are in the attached flyer.
Michelle Sugiyama
My peer review report for “Use it or lose it: A model-based assessment of the hypothesis that European Neanderthals relied on wildfires to create their campfires” was published in Open Research Europe, 5:205.
Scott Blumenthal
Paleoanthropologist Dr. Fredrick Kyalo Manthi is joining our department as a courtesy professor. He is a Senior Research Scientist and Director of Antiquities, Sites, and Monuments at the National Museums of Kenya (NMK), and for many years has been an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at University of Utah. Kyalo is an international member of the National Academy of Sciences and is the founder and co-director of the West Turkana Paleo Project, and founder and director of the Kenya Prehistory Club. Plans are in the works for a campus visit in the spring.
Jensen Wainwright is a coauthor on a recently published paper in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), which stems from a student group project conducted during a summer course:
- Sharp, Z., Wostbrock, J., Gargano, A., Hare, V., Johnson, J., Cerling, T., Banerjee, P., Peshek, C., Knutson, C., Hartzell, L., Cano, E., Stiles, E., Bassett, K.R., Holland, K., Dowd, M.H., Sae-Lim, J.N., Dominguez, T., Bryant, D., Di Marcantonio, E., Wainwright, J., Horsford, M., Botté, P., Gagnon, C., Rudall, P.J., Ehleringer, J., 2025. Extreme triple oxygen isotope fractionation in Equisetum. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 122, e2507455122.
Blumenthal is a coauthor on an invited contribution to a Special Issue Honoring Keith Hobson, a pioneer of isotope ecology:
- Cerling TE, Lerback JC, Fernandez DP, Wasser SK, Blumenthal SA, Chau T, Chesson LA, Chisdock C, Chritz, KL, Hoareau Y, Kaliszewska ZA, Kahumbu P, Kipnis EL, Kirera KM, Korir DK, Kuhner MK, Odhacha T, Tejada JV, Uno KT, Wittemyer G. Elephant range and population, strontium isotopes, and genetics combine to give local-scale specificity to ivory hotspot tracking. Isotopes in Environmental and Health Studies.