David Anderson
My primary focus of study is Maya archaeology. I received my B.A. degree in Anthropology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. My research focuses on the Preclassic occupation of northern Yucatan. I am currently working at the site of Xtobo, gathering data for my dissertation.

danders3@tulane.edu

Heather Backo
hbacko@tulane.edu

Joyce Bennett

jbennet@tulane.edu

Melissa Beske
I received my B.A. in anthropology from Vanderbilt University in 2004 and came to the graduate program at Tulane in fall of that year.  I am currently a Ph.D. Candidate in cultural anthropology with a focus in gender and violence among the Mestizo and Creole populations of western Belize.  Previous field experience includes three field seasons with the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project at the sites of Baking Pot and Caracol, one field season with the Center for Social Wellbeing in Carhuaz, Peru, subsequent research on New Orleans street performers, and several years of domestic violence research in affiliation with Cornerstone Foundation NGO and the Women's Department in San Ignacio, Belize.
mbeske@tulane.edu

Marc Blainey

B.A. in Anthropology (University of Western Ontario), M.A. in Anthropology (Trent University)
Regional interests: New World (particularly Amazonia and Mesoamerica), Europe (specifically the transnational movement and importation of foreign religious beliefs and practices here)
Theoretical interests: existential and phenomenological anthropology, ethnometaphysics, shamanism, neo-shamanism, entheology, cognitive archaeology, iconography, Mayan hieroglyphs
Ph.D. Dissertation Research Focus:  I plan to conduct ethnography with European converts to the Santo Daime church, a syncretic religious affiliation combining Catholic and Afro-Brazilian traditions with elements of indigenous Amazonian shamanism.  Assemblages of this group gather regularly to imbibe Ayahuasca tea, a potent entheogen, in a sincere ceremonial context.  I would like to delve deeper in identifying possible links between this ritual behaviour and the metaphysical assumptions underlying the associated beliefs.  The long-term fieldwork that I will eventually conduct for my Ph.D. dissertation research will focus on developing a comprehensive familiarity with the ideational orientation of adherents to the Santo Daime congregation in Belgium.
mblainey@tulane.edu

Nathalie Dajko
Linguistics, study of Louisiana French.
ndajko@tulane.edu

http://www.tulane.edu/~ndajko

Diane Davies
Maya archaeology, settlement patterns, transition between the Middle Preclassic and Late Preclassic and the development of sociopolitical complexity. Dissertation research at San Bartolo, El Peten, Guatemala.
ddavies@tulane.edu

Patrick Dowling

Meredith Dudley
mdudley@tulane.edu

James Dugan
I began the doctoral program at Tulane in the Fall of 2001, with a concentration in Linguistic Anthropology.  I spent my year of fieldwork (2004-2005) in lowland Guatemala, collecting folklore in the Ch’orti’ Maya language, and am currently writing a dissertation describing the grammar of that language.  Courses taught include ANTH103 Languages of the World, ANTH330 History of Writing Systems, and ANTH760 Spoken Nahuatl Language.  My secondary research area is Christian Fundamentalism in North America, and its impact on indigenous peoples.

http://studentweb.tulane.edu/~jdugan/
jdugan@tulane.edu

Stacy Dunn
StacyD1234@aol.com

Ronald Faulseit
I am interested in the archaeology of the Oaxaca Valley during the Late Classic period. At present, I am conducting my dissertation research at the site of Dainzú-Macuilxóchitl in the Tlacolula arm of the Oaxaca Valley. Click on the link below to find out more about my research there.
http://studentweb.tulane.edu/~rfaulsei/

rfaulsei@tulane.edu

Lukas Friedl

lukas.friedl@gmail.com

Thomas Gallareta Negron
tomasgn@sureste.com

Joanna Gautney

jgauntey@tulane.edu

Wade Glenn
Cultural Anthropology - religion, gender, and medical anthropology. I am studying a popular syncretic religion in Venezuela known as the Cult of Maria Lionza which combines indigenous, African, and European traditions. My research focuses on spirit possession, traditional medicine/shamanism, politics, economics, and  urban anthropology.
wglenn@tulane.edu

Rebecca Golden
Cultural anthropology of political violence in West and Central Africa .
golden_rl@yahoo.com

Fae Goodman

fgoodman@tulane.edu  

Jennifer Griffin Yoshizawa
Archaeological investigation of the site of Teuchitlan, Jalisco, Mexico .
jenng@yahoo.com

Ashley Heaton
I came to Tulane's graduate program in 2003 after receiving my B.A. from Vanderbilt University earlier that year. My focus in Andean archaeology. I am currently involved in archaeological investigations directed by Dr. Alexei Vranich (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthroplogy) at the site of Tiwanaku near Lake Titicaca in Bolivia.
aheaton1@tulane.edu

Rebecca Hill
Archaeological investigations at the Maya site of Kiuic, Mexico .
rhill1@tulane.edu

David Hixson
With a B.A. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I am currently in Tulane's Ph.D. progam for Mesoamerican Archaeology. My interests include the Northern Maya Lowlands, regional settlement pattern studies, multi-spectral satellite imagery, cultural anthropology of the Maya of Yucatan, Formative Period Mesoamerica, and Mesoamerican iconography. Working with the support of Stennis Space Center and the Pakbeh Regional Economy Program, I am conducting a regional settlement pattern survey at the Classic Maya site of Chunchycmil, Yucatan .

With a background in computer graphic design for archaeological illustrations, I have also created the "Mesoamerican Photo Archives" web site at:
http://studentweb.tulane.edu/~dhixson/
dhixson@tulane.edu

Haley Holt

hholt@tulane.edu

Sherman Horn, III

shorn@tulane.edu

 Myriam Huet
I received my B.A. in Anthropology from Louisiana State University in 1996 and my M.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Louisiana State University in 1998.

I am a graduate student in cultural anthropology. My dissertation research pertains to the rastafari movement in Martinique and Guadeloupe , French Antilles. In particular, I focus on the work of Rastafari artisans and the role of Rastafari arts as vivid expressions of Rastafari identity and as means for social agents to represent themselves culturally and recover history.
mhuet17@yahoo.com

Vance Hutchinson
I received my B.A. in Archaeology from Simon Fraser University, 1997, and my M.A. in Anthropology from Northern Illinois University, 2000.

I suppose I could be considered a paleoanthropologist and human paleontologist. My primary interests lie in the biological and demographic aspects of the archaic-modern human transition. My undergraduate research focused mainly on East Asian Homo erectus . My M.A. thesis investigated the taxonomic affiliation of a Middle Paleolithic Morrocan child from the site of Mugharet el 'Aliya and the skeletal morphology of Neandertal children in general. I have been excavating two Middle Paleolithic sites in Portugal with Dr. Trenton Holliday, with the express hope of uncovering human fossil material. Currently, Dr. Holliday and myself are in our second field season at the Lagar Velho Norte Alto site in east central Portugal . It is up the road from he now famous Lagar Velho main site and we are interested in the Middle and Upper Paleolithic of the area, but desperately hote to find Neandertal(s).
vhutchin@tulane.edu

Lori Jahnke
Physical anthropology of prehistoric populations of the Peruvian north coast and highlands. Previous field research includes work at Las Golandrinas, near Antigua, Guatemala, and at the Hauca de la Luna in the Moche River Valley , Northern Peru .
ljahnke@tulane.edu

Scott Johnson

I started my graduate studies at Tulane in 2006 after receiving my B.A. in Archaeology from Boston University in 2005. My primary focus is Maya Archaeology with a side of Epigraphy but I am also interested in experimental archaeology and written languages. I have worked in Mexico, Guatemala, Colorado, Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, and England.
sajjohnson@gmail.com

Christopher Jones
cjones10@tulane.edu

Eman Khalifa

ekhalifa@tulane.edu

Clayton Larson
clarson1@tulane.edu

Crorey Lawton
I received my Master's degree in Anthropology from Northern Illinois University , and have done fieldwork in Israel , Hawai'i , Illinois, Louisiana, Alabama, as well as in Mexico, with field seasons in Campeche , Veracruz and Yucatan . My dissertation research focuses on specialization and stone tool use at a long-term occupation Maya site in Peten, Guatemala.  That research comprises microscopic use-wear analysis, experimental archaeology, production analysis, and also includes an attempt at chemical sourcing of chert using a portable X-Ray Fluorescence device. 
jlawton@tulane.edu

Bryan Lenz
I received my BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2001 and my MSc from Oxford Brookes University in 2004, where I studied loud-call vocalizations in black howler monkeys (Alouatta pigra). Currently, I am interested in several areas. My focus is on the effects of habitat fragmentation on primate behavior and habitat use, but I am also interested in all conservation issues. I will be conducting my dissertation fieldwork in the Neotropics at the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project just north of Manaus, Brazil.

sanstapetum@yahoo.com

Marc Maddox

Mesoamerican Cultural Anthropologist/Sociolinguist Current Research Interests:   Language maintenance, shift, and revitalization in conjunction with issues of bilingual education, economics, religion, and politics in Kaqchikel Maya and other indigenous communities throughout Mesoamerica.   Research Site: San Antonio Aguas Calientes and the Quinizilapa Valley, Sacatepequez, Guatemala
mmaddox@tulane.edu

Sunny Mann

In the fall of 2004, I began the doctoral program at Tulane with a concentration in Linguistic Anthropology.  I am about to begin my first field season in the summer of 2008 in highland Guatemala and will be gathering elicitations, narratives and conversations in the languages of K’ichean subfamily of Mayan. I have taught courses such as ANTH 102 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, ANTH 103 Languages of the World, ANTH 210 Myth and Life, and ANTH 680 Spoken Yucatecan Maya.  I will be moving to Northwest Arkansas in the fall of ’08 and while there I hope to be able to study the Cherokee revitalization movement as well as the impact of migration on language retention.

smann@tulane.edu

Kerriann Marden

Kay's doctoral research focuses on variation in the treatment of human remains in Chaco Canyon. Related interests include taphonomy, pathological conditions of human bone and forensic anthropology. Kay recently worked for 18 months with Dr. Marcella Sorg in the recovery and analysis of human skeletal remains for the Chief Medical Examiner's Offices of Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island.  She is now completing her doctoral research under a Smithsonian Predoctoral Fellowship at the National Museum of Natural History.

kmarden@tulane.edu

Natalia Mauricio

nat_mauricio@hotmail.com

Matthew Moriarty
I received my B.A. in history and anthropology from Amherst College and I am currently engaged in the preparation of my Ph.D. dissertation. My dissertation is focused on the ancient Maya center of Trinidad de Nosotros, a port site located on the north shore of Guatemala's Lake Petén Itzá. Two seasons of field investigations have revealed Trinidad to be a small, but complex center with a history of occupation extending from ca. 800 BC up to the present day. Trinidad's local importance was probably greatest during the Late Classic period (ca. AD 550 – 850) when it served as the principal port and gateway to the nearby political capital of Motul de San José. My research examines the structure of economic transactions between these two centers and the nature of politically and ritually charged activities at Trinidad as a means of assessing various models for ancient Maya political economy. My broader research interests include settlement patterns, port studies, ceramic analyses, obsidian trade, ethnoarchaeology, political economy, the ancient Maya ballgame, and archaeological research design.
mmoriar@tulane.edu

Nina Neivens de Estrada
ninaneivens@yahoo.com

Caroline Parris

cparris@tulane.edu

Erin Patterson

epatters@tulane.edu

Brian Pierson

Brianaala@yahoo.com

Cristina Pop
cpop@tulane.edu

Roberto Rivera

rrivera@tulane.edu

Michael Rodgers

mrodgers@tulane.edu

Lori Roe
I am currently researching the role of mound architecture at the Raffman site, a Coles Creek (Late Woodland) site in northeast Louisiana . The focus of my graduate studies has been on North American archaeology, with an emphasis on the southeastern United States . My research interests include the development of hierarchical societies, social complexity among hunter-gatherers, and prehistoric and historic cultural contacts.
lroe@tulane.edu

Allen Rutherford

arutherf@tulane.edu

Merritt Sanders

messerv14@hotmail.com

Daniella Santoro

dsantoro@tulane.edu

Valerie Schoof

My research interests center around sexual selection theory; specifically, I am interested in reproductive strategies, mate choice and mating competition of primates (both human and non-human). My doctoral research will focus on the reproductive strategies of male white-faced capuchins (Cebus capucinus) in Santa Rosa National Park in Costa Rica. I will be studying male behavior and collecting fecal samples that will be assayed for androgen and cortisol content. I am also hoping to analyze parasite load of the fecal samples to examine the effects of testosterone and cortisol on immunocompetence.

vschoof@tulane.edu

Stanley Serafin
I am a bioarchaeologist conducting my dissertation research at Mayapan, the largest Maya city of the Late Postclassic. I am analyzing the human remains to investigate the roles of various forms of violence, from domestic abuse to sacrifice to war, in urban elite society of the late pre-contact Maya. Ethnohistoric accounts describe various forms of sacrifice practiced during the contact period in Yucatan, as well as a violent revolt that led to the demise of Mayapan in the 15th century, providing richer comparative and contextual data than are available for most Maya sites.

sserafi@tulane.edu

Claire Sheller

clairesheller@gmail.com

Lihong Shi
Cultural Anthropology. Gender, Reproduction; China and East Asia.
lshi@tulane.edu

Trent Stockton

trentcstockton@hotmail.com

Anne Titelbaum
I received an MA in anthropology from Washington University, St. Louis, a BA in anthropology from Tufts University, and have done bioarchaeological and archaeological fieldwork in Peru, archaeological and bioarchaeological fieldwork in the United States (Illinois, Missouri, Georgia, Louisiana, and Delaware), and sociocultural fieldwork in Indonesia. My current research interests concern Andean Bioarchaeology. I am particularly interested in examining skeletal biology, paleopathology, human biological variation, and musculoskeletal stress markers among the prehistoric Moche (ca. 100 BC AD 700) population of Peru.
atitelb@tulane.edu

Nezahualcoyotl Xiuhtecutli
Archaeology of Central Mexico
nxiuhtec@tulane.edu