PhD Alumni
HUMERA DINAR, PhD, 2020
Dr. Humera Dinar is currently adjunct faculty at Clark College and recently held the position of Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Bahria University in Islamabad. There she taught in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences and conducting research in Pakistan.
JEREMY BEACH, PhD, 2017
Dr. Beach is a Research Associate at the Human Identification Center at the University of Indianapolis where he assists with forensic cases and helps with the development of student research. His dissertation (under the advisement of Dr. Michele Buzon) compared dietary data from two time periods in Mongolian prehistory and utilized dental microwear texture analysis (working with Dr. Christopher Schmidt, a fellow Purdue alum).
CONNER WIKTOROWICZ, PhD, 2017
Conner Wiktorowicz is a Cultural Resources Specialist at Argonne National Laboritory.
ELIZABETH WIRTZ, MS 2011, Ph.D. 2017
Elizabeth Wirtz is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Purdue University and has served as a Qualitative Analyst at the Department of Veterans Affairs EMIC (Ethnographic Method and Implementation Core) in Iowa City, Iowa.
JONAS ECKE, PhD, 2016
Dr. Jonas Ecke is a researcher on complex humanitarian aid and healthcare crises. He has served as Senior Research Manager for the “Tough Choices: Dilemmas and Decisions in Peacemaking“ research project, which is a collaboration between the Jean Monnet Center of Excellence of Kiev Mohyla Academy in Ukraine, swisspeace and the ETH Center for Security Studies in Switzerland, as well as the Center for Peace Mediation in Germany. Since he graduated with his PhD in 2016, Jonas has also applied his anthropological knowledge for humanitarian aid organizations in Turkey and South Sudan. His writing has also appeared in Common Dreams and Jacobin.
ANJALI BHARDWAJ, PhD, 2014
Dr. Anjali Bhardwaj has been working in the development and public health sector for the last 15 years. She was trained in Journalism at the University of Delhi (India) and Social Work at the Tata Institute of Social Science (India). She later worked with NGOs on various community health and child protection programs in India, and completed her PhD in cultural anthropology (focusing on critical anthropology and public health) in 2014 at Purdue. Her doctoral dissertation was focused on the postpartum health of women and the response of the public health sector in Rajasthan, India. Since 2014, she has been based in New Delhi, India, and continues to work towards strengthening public health interventions in India and other Asian countries. She worked as a consultant from 2014-2016 for various organizations including John Snow India, Oxfam India, and The World Bank Group, among others. She is now working at Nutrition International's Asia Regional Office as Technical Advisor and handles portfolios for maternal, child, and adolescent nutrition and health. She provides technical support and quality assurance for programs in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Philippines.
FRANCISCA LAI, PhD, 2014
Currently, Dr. Francisca Yuenki Lai is an assistant professor at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. She received her PhD in cultural anthropology at Purdue University. Her research interests include gender and queer studies, aging, and labor migration. Her book, Maid to Queer: Asian Labor Migration and Female Same-Sex Desires, details the meanings of same-sex relationships among Indonesian migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong.
CAROLYN JOST ROBINSON, PhD, 2012
Carolyn Jost Robinson is Director and Co-Founder of the Forest Collective. She was Associate of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington from 2013 to 2020. Her areas of research include biological/cultural anthropology, human and wildlife behavioral ecology and adaptation in coupled human-natural systems. Her integrative approach to research and teaching spans the subfields of anthropology and has resulted in an innovative understanding of biological anthropology using mixed theoretical and methodological frameworks.
KATHERINE SMITH, MS 2008, PhD 2012
Dr. Katie Smith is currently Associate Director of Research Administration and Operations at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. From 2015 to 2020 she was an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Southern Mississippi, working on examining health, wellbeing, nutrition, and the microbiome in captive housed Garnett's Greater Bushbabies. After leaving Purdue, Dr. Smith completed a Post-Doc at The University of Houston, where she worked on stress and health in young African-Americans in the Houston area.
RICHARD WELD, III, PhD, 2011
Dr. Richard Weld III is currently the Visitor Services Supervisor, which is part of the External Affairs Division of the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum. He leads a staff of 8 in coordinating the activities of over 1,000 Smithsonian volunteers.
RYAN PLIS, MS 2010, PhD 2015
Ryan Plis is currently Academic Advisor at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor in the College of Literature, Science & the Arts.
SARAH SCHRADER, PHD, 2013
Dr. Sarah Schrader is Associate Professor in Osteoarchaeology at the University of Leiden. Her book, Activity, Diet and Social Practice: Addressing Everyday Life in Human Skeletal Remains was published by Springer Press in 2019. This book is based on Dr. Schrader’s Ph.D. Research.
NILA GINGER HOFMAN, MS, PhD, 2000
Nila Ginger Hofman is Professor and Director of the Community Service Studies Minor at DePaul University and the director of the community service studies minor. Professor Hofman studies urban populations, focusing specifically on labor and gender. She is the author of a number of articles that record the lives of urban populations, including undocumented immigrants and injection drug users in Chicago, intellectual elites in Mérida, Mexico and Roma women in Zagreb, Croatia. She has also written about feminist research ethics and methodologies and has conducted research on women’s working lives in Croatia, Mexico as well as in the United States. Her latest book is Women and Capitalism in the Croatian Hinterland: the Practice of Labor and Consumption (2015).
CHRISTOPHER SCHMIDT, PhD, 1998
Since graduating with a PhD in 1998 Dr. Christopher Schmidt has taught at the University of Indianapolis in the Department of Anthropology. Currently he is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Anthropology Graduate Program. His research focuses on dietary reconstruction via dental microwear texture analysis. He has collaborated with top scholars (including Dr. Michele Buzon at Purdue) regarding dental microwear, but also via the analysis of burned human remains. Dr. Schmidt has co-edited two editions of a volume regarding the study of burned bones and is currently co-editing a volume on dental wear. Over the years he has had 34 Masters students and has earned both teaching and research honors at UIndy. In Dr. Schmidt words: “I am indebted to the Purdue Anthropology faculty and staff who guided and challenged me during my graduate tenure there.”
PETER PEREGRINE, PhD, 1990
Dr. Peter N. Peregrine is currently Professor of Anthropology and Museum Studies at Lawrence University and Research Associate of the Human Relations Area Files at Yale University. He is well known for his staunch defense of science in anthropology, and for his popular textbook Anthropology (with Carol R. Ember and Melvin Ember). Dr. Peregrine has developed a comprehensive data set and methodology for conducting diachronic cross-cultural research. This work produced the Atlas of Cultural Evolutionand the Encyclopedia of Prehistory (with Melvin Ember), and also formed the organizational structure for the Human Relations Area Files eHRAF Archaeology. Much of Dr. Peregrine’s archaeological fieldwork in North America, Syria, and South America has involved the use of geophysical techniques to identify buried archaeological deposits. In 2009 Peregrine started the Lawrence University Archaeological Survey, which focuses on using geophysical techniques to locate unmarked graves in early Wisconsin cemeteries. In 2011 Peregrine was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.