Jessica Lee (PhD '12) and Porter Bourie (PhD '14) are independent contractors with Dexis Consulting Group in Washington, DC. They are part of a burgeoning field: monitoring & evaluation (M&E) of Security Sector Reform. Their M&E program is situated at the Department of State in the Bureau of African Affairs. Their work includes collecting primary and secondary data as well as analyzing the outcomes and impacts of certain projects conducted in West and East African countries most affected by terrorism. If you're interested in applied anthropology work in government or development, they are happy to talk with all interested anthropology students.
Spotlight: Dr. Amy Louise Harrison Levine
After a monumentally determined 15 years, with the support of advisor Bert Covert and a recent fellowship from Dr. Scott Ferris, Amy Harrison Levine will receive her doctorate in August. Her journey is worth sharing:
Many who pursue graduate degrees face long and winding roads, rife with barriers, blockades, and hopefully an incredible support network to surmount all of those hurdles. Dr. Amy Harrison Levine’s journey to dissertation completion was no different. She first enrolled as a PhD student in biological anthropology back in fall 2001, and while completing her coursework and conceptualizing dissertation project number one, she and her husband welcomed two children into their family. In a hurricane of events involving study site closure and managing the challenging infancy of her second child, Amy made the difficult choice to put her graduate studies on hold. About a year after leaving CU Boulder, Amy was offered a position with Denver Zoo, and it was about this time that she and Dr. Bert Covert began discussing potentially re-enrolling and pursuing a dissertation project focused on Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys of Vietnam – an important pursuit, given these monkeys are one of the world’s most critically endangered species. While maintaining her full time career at the zoo, Amy re-enrolled and with incredible support from family, friends, colleagues, professors, and her employer, she was able to balance the demands of her PhD work with a full-time job, full-time motherhood and wifedom, and everything else life throws at us all. Of course, fate presented a few additional hurdles along the way – deaths in the family, her children’s sports injuries, a serious illness that put her out of commission for almost a year, and some time-consuming and emotionally draining work situations. But as most people would, she fell back on her supporters, accepted those set-backs, and moved on. Her dissertation research focused on evaluating human and Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys sharing forest resources in Vietnam, with aims to understand this interrelationship both from theoretical and practical, applied perspectives. Results not only clarify that humans are, indeed, integral components of this forest ecosystem, but will also contribute to conservation efforts in the region being led by Denver Zoo, CU Boulder, and other important partners. Although her 15-year journey was not a short or easy process by any stretch of the imagination, Amy is incredibly proud to finally tout her CU Boulder alumnus status, and feels so fortunate to be able to immediately apply her accomplishments to her ongoing work at Denver Zoo, as Director of Field Conservation Programs. Ultimately, though, it is the notion that she can be a model of determination for her family and friends, who have been her true champions, that makes her journey complete.
Craig Lee (PhD ’07, ice patch archeologist with INSTAAR) and two of his research colleagues will receive the 2016 Camp Monaco Prize. The $100,000 prize, awarded once every three years, facilitates integrated scientific research and public education initiatives in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
Emily Haver (BA’15 Magna Cum Laude) gained invaluable experience as an intern with the Underwater Archaeology Branch of the Naval History and Heritage Command, sponsored by the AAA Internship Program.
Mark Hamrick (BA 1990?) has been appointed by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia as a Regents’ Professor at Augusta University effective May 10, 2016. Dr. Hamrick contributes substantively to all three missions of the department, the college and the university. Congratulations Dr. Hamrick on this well-deserved and prestigious honor.
Guy Hepp (PhD ’15) was selected for the 2016 Society for American Archaeology Dissertation Award! The SAA committee annually selects a single dissertation (completed within the last three years in the field of archaeology) that exemplifies exceptional research to receive special recognition as the most outstanding, original contribution to the field at this level. The award must have heled him land his tenure-track position as Assistant Professor of Anthropology at California State University, San Bernardino, starting in the fall. A great accomplishment, fresh out of grad school!
Jakob Sedig (PhD ’15) has been appointed to a newly-created position in the ancient DNA Lab at Harvard University. He will serve as the lab's resident archaeologist, which will consist of reaching out to museums and identifying samples to be analyzed, helping the lab develop new projects, and reporting data back to archaeologists. Sedig is the lab’s first-ever archaeologist. Find out more about the Reich ancient DNA Lab here.
Magda Stawkowski (PhD ’14) has completed her Post-Doc at Stanford and has accepted a position as Visiting Professor at North Carolina State University.
Curtis Martin (MA ’75) is a research archaeologist for Grand River Institute and Dominquez Archaeological Research Group, Inc., both in Grand Junction, Colorado. He is the Principal Investigator for the Colorado Wickiup Project, which received the 2014 Governor’s Award in recognition of the project. The Colorado Wickiup Project is documenting ephemeral wooden features such as wickiups, tree-platforms, and brush horse corrals that remain scattered throughout the mesas, canyons, and mountains of the state. Many date from after the arrival of European newcomers. The project is unique in using the techniques of metal detection, historic trade ware analysis, and tree-ring dating of metal ax–cut wickiup poles to distinguish the Ute sites from historic Euro–American ones. Researchers have demonstrated that not all Utes left Colorado for the reservations in Utah during the “final removal” in 1881, as has been generally believed. A significant number remained on their homelands well into the early decades of the twentieth century, with new tools and weapons, but building brush shelters and living much as they had for generations. [Jacket notes from his 2016 book, Ephemeral Bounty. See Publications.]
Forever Anthropologists
Chip Colwell, Denver Museum of Nature and Science's curator of anthropology, is at the helm of our favorite new publication Sapiens, a new Anthropology online magazine is now LIVE!