Department of Anthropology

Faculty and Staff

Among our faculty are renowned scholars in their respective fields; a physical/biological anthropologist, leading paleolithic and Holocene archaeologists of the North, and arctic specialists in social anthropology, ethnohistory, and linguistics.

Department Chair - Joel D. Irish

Faculty

S. Craig Gerlach, Professor; PhD (anthropology), Brown University, 1989. Recent work focuses on nutritional ecology, community health, and on the restoration of traditional food systems in interior northern Alaska.
Phone: 907-474-6752
E-mail: ffscg @ uaf.edu

Joel D. Irish, Professor, Curator of Biological Anthropology at the UA Museum; PhD (biological anthropology), Arizona State University, 1993.  Dental anthropology, paleopathology, human osteology, human variation, bioarchaeology; Africa, Southeast Alaska.
Phone: 907-474-6755
E-mail: ffjdi@uaf.edu

David C. Koester, Associate Professor; PhD (anthropology) University of Chicago, 1990. Culture and history, historical and national/ethnic consciousness; anthropological study of children; history of ethnography; Iceland, Russian Far East, circumpolar.
Phone: 907-474-7133
E-mail: ffdck @ uaf.edu

Molly Lee, Professor, Curator of Ethnology at the UA Museum; PhD, University of California at Berkeley, 1992. Sociocultural anthropology, Native Alaskan, Eskimo and Inuit art of the historical and contemporary periods.
Phone: 907-474-7828
E-mail: ffmcl @ uaf.edu

Kathe Managan, Assistant Professor; Ph.D. (Anthropology), New York University, 2004. Creole languages, language and media, language and identities, ideologies of language, multilingualism, voluntary organizations, performance, transnationalism; the Caribbean, Louisiana, the African diaspora, francophone communities.
Phone: 907-474-6608
E-mail: ffjkm @ uaf.edu

Maribeth Murray, Associate Professor; PhD (anthropology), McMaster University, 1996.  Archaeology, zooarchaeology, and palaeoeskimo prehistory, North American prehistory.
Phone: 907-474-6751
E-mail: ffmsm @ uaf.edu

Daniel Odess, Associate Professor, Curator of Archaeology at the UA Museum; Ph.D. (anthropology), Brown University, 1996. Archaeology and paleoecology of Siberia, Alaska, and Arctic Canada.
Phone: 907-474-6945
Email: ffdpo @ uaf.edu

Ben A. Potter , Assistant Professor; PhD (anthropology), University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2005. Subarctic and Arctic archaeology, site structure and organization, intersite variability, world prehistory.
Phone: 907-474-7567
Email: ffbap3 @ uaf.edu

Peter P. Schweitzer, Professor; PhD (anthropology), University of Vienna, 1990. Social organization and ethnohistory of Siberia and Alaska.
Phone: 907-474-5015
E-mail: ffpps @ uaf.edu

Kerrie Ann Shannon, Assistant Professor; PhD (anthropology), University of Aberdeen, 2004. Knowledge and skill, human-environment relations, economic anthropology, and kinship; Canadian Arctic, Circumpolar.
Phone: 907-474-6884
E-mail: ffkas @ uaf.edu

Emeriti

Charlotte Basham, Associate Professor; PhD (linguistics), University of Michigan, 1986. Discourse analysis, second language acquisition, and contrastive rhetoric.
Phone: 907-474-6884
E-mail: ffcsb @ uaf.edu

Patricia B. Kwachka, Professor; PhD (linguistics), University of Florida Gainesville, 1981. Sociolinguistics, language acquisition, language shift, and medical communication. (Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts.)
Phone: 907-474-6610
E-mail: ffpbk @ uaf.edu

Phyllis Morrow (Former Dean of the College of Liberal Arts), Professor; PhD (social and cultural anthropology), Cornell University, 1987. Linguistic anthropology, socio-legal studies, folklore, Inuit/Yup'ik ethnography, and ritual and symbolism.

Term Faculty

David Fazzino , Visiting Asssistant Professor; J.D. University of Florida, ABD (anthropology) University of Florida. Food security, globalization issues.
Phone: 907-474-6188
E-mail: ffdvf @ uaf.edu

Post-Docs

Patrick Plattet, Ph.D. University of Neuchâtel (Unine, Switzerland) , 2005. Post-Soviet religious practices of maritime hunters and reindeer herders; Russian Far East.
E-mail: ffpp @ uaf.edu

Professors in Other Departments

Nancy Bigelow, Affiliate Research Professor; PhD (paleoecology) University of Alaska Fairbanks,1997. Research Associate, Alaska Quaternary Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks. Quaternary paleoecology, palynology, Beringian environments.
Phone: 907-474-5433
Email: ffnhb@uaf.edu

Elaine Drew, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Ph.D. (anthropology) University of Kentucky, 2004.
Office: 704A Gruening; Phone: 474-6415;
E-mail: ffemd @ uaf.edu

Michael Koskey, Assistant Professor of Alaska Native Studies, Ph.D. (anthropology) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2003.
Office: 307 Brooks Bldg., Phone: 474-6604;
E-mail: mike.koskey@alaska.edu

Diane O’Brien, Assistant Professor, Institute for Arctic Biology/Department of Biology and Wildlife. PhD (ecology and evolutionary biology), Princeton University, 1998. Stable isotope ecology, nutritional physiology of insects; understanding patterns of stable isotope variation among biological compounds.
Phone: 907-474-5762
Email: ffdo@uaf.edu

William Schneider, Professor of Library Science; Ph.D. (anthropology) Bryn Mawr College, 1976.
Phone: 907-474-5355
Email: ffwss @ uaf.edu

Affiliate Faculty

Renee Friedman, Affiliate Research Professor; PhD (Near Eastern studies), University of California, Berkeley, 1994. Heagy Research Curator, Egyptian Dept., British Museum.

Patty A. Gray, Affiliate Associate Professor; PhD (cultural anthropology), University of Wisconsin at Madison, 1998. Political and economic anthropology, social movements, transformation in post-Soviet rural communities, reindeer herding systems; rural European Russia, Russian Far North, Alaska.

Alexander D. King, Affiliate Assistant Professor; PhD (anthropology), University of Virginia, 2000. Lecturer of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen. Ethnography of speaking, symbolic anthropology, culture, nationalism, postsocialist societies, ritual and shamanism.

Robin O. Mills, Affiliate Assistant Professor; PhD (anthropology), University of Alaska Fairbanks, 1998. Fairbanks District Archaeologist, Bureau of Land Management. Historical archaeology, mining history, cultural resource management.

Richard Nelson, Affiliate Research Professor; PhD (anthropology), University of California, Santa Barbara. Indigenous cultures of Alaska, author and natural historian.

Anne D. Shinkwin, Affiliate Professor; PhD (anthropology), University of Wisconsin, 1975. Northern anthropology.

Affiliate Instructors

Julie Esdale, Affiliate Instructor; ABD (anthropology), Brown University. Arctic archaeology, geoarchaeology, and lithic analysis.

Howard Maxwell, Affiliate Instructor; MA (anthropology), University of Alaska Fairbanks, 1987. Instructor, Rural Alaska Honors Institute, UAF.

Howard Smith, Affiliate Instructor; MA (anthropology), University of Utah, 1975. Field Office Archaeologist (retired), Bureau of Land Management. Cultural resource management, Arctic and northwest Alaska, Alaska mining history.

Joshua D. Reuther, Affiliate Instructor; ABD (anthropology), University of Arizona. Geoarchaeology, radiometric dating, archaeometry.

Graduate Students

Staff

Karen Kosiek, Administrative Assistant
Phone: 907-474-7009
E-mail: fnklk @ uaf.edu

Student Assistant
Phone: 907-474-7288
E-mail: fyanth @ uaf.edu


Former Faculty (1935-2005)