Current Graduate Students
Tom Allen
Education: Current MA student; BS Anthropology (2011) University of Alaska Fairbanks
Thesis: Early Holocene Lithic Procurement, Technological Organization, and Mobility: Insights
from XBD-167 (Little Delta #3)
Research interests: I primarily work on questions of technological adaptations during the Early Holocene
especially on toolstone procurement behavior and the insight these behaviors have
on understanding mobility during this ecologically dynamic time period. As an extension,
my research includes the ways material quality and material availability affect technological
organization and degree of tool production and intensification at procurement sites.
Email: tcallen@alaska.edu
Chris Cannon
Education: Current PhD Candidate in Cultural Anthropology; MA Northern Studies (2014) University
of Alaska Fairbanks (Thesis: Alaska Athabascan Stellar Astronomy); BS Wildlife Biology
(2007) University of Alaska Fairbanks
Dissertation Topic: Northern Dene Astronomical and Sky-Related Knowledge: A Comparative Anthropological
Study
Research Interests: Northern Dene (Athabascan) language and culture with a focus on astronomical and sky-related
knowledge within and across ethnolinguistic groups
Email: cmcannon2@alaska.edu
Ellen Carrlee
Education: Current PhD candidate cultural anthropology, MA Art History and objects conservation
(2000) New York University, BA Art History (1996) University of Wisconsin-Madison
Dissertation Topic: Meaning and Materiality of Gutskin in Yup'ik Relationships
Research Interests: Material Culture, Museums, Materiality, Yup'ik Culture, Webs of Relationships, Animal
Personhood, Agency of Objects
Email: emcarrlee@alaska.edu; juneauellen@gmail.com
Sierra Cotrona
Education: Current PhD student, BA (2016) Geological Sciences and Anthropology, University of
Rochester; MS (2018) Biomedical Anthropology, Binghamton University; M.Re (2019) Bioarchaeology,
Wrexham University. Master's Thesis: Skeletal Markers as Indicators of Labor in a
Nineteenth Century New York Cemetery
Dissertation Topic: Dental Patterns in Understanding Origins of South Asian Populations
Research Interests: Dental morphology, forensic anthropology, bioarchaeology, skeletal biology
Email: sscotrona@alaska.edu
Allison K. Cruz
Education: Current MA student; BA History (2017) University of Alaska Fairbanks; Associates
of Art (2010) Marymount California University
Thesis Topic: Animal-Human Relationships in Alaskan Dog Mushing
Research interests: Anthropology of Religion, Spiritual Bonds and Dependency, Victorian Spiritualism,
History and Cultures of Death, Ritual Movements
Email: akcruz@alaska.edu
Audra Darcy
Education: Current MA student; BA Anthropology, Minor: Earth Science (2013) University of Maine
Orono; Management Certificate (2016) Harvard Extension School
Research interests: Geoarchaeology, hunter-gatherers, human-environment interaction, climate change,
peopling of the Americas
Email: ajdarcy@alaska.edu
Zhao Jian
Education: Current PhD student; MA Archaeology (2018) Zhengzhou University. Master's Thesis:
Analysis of Starch Grains on Stone Tools Excavated from GouWan Site.
Dissertation Topic: Ancient Starch Grains; C and N stable isotopes; Geographic Information Systems.
Research interests: Environmental Archaeology, Archaeological Sciences; Agriculture.
Email: zjian@alaska.edu
Casey Jobe
Education: Current MA student; BA Anthropology (2017) University of Alaska Fairbanks
Thesis Topic: Understanding technological organization of mid- to late-Holocene occupation of the
Mead site through lithic analysis.
Research interests: Lithic Analysis; GIS and Spatial Patterning; Technological Organization; Hunter-Gatherers;
Prehistoric Transitional Phases; Human Behavioral Ecology
Email: pcjobe@alaska.edu
Ilona Kemp-Noordeloos
Education: Bachelor of Education (2009) Hogeschool Utrecht The Netherlands; Master of Science
(2011) Social and Cultural Anthropology; PhD student
Thesis: On the Ice Edge: Inupiaq people and climate change in Barrow, Alaska);
Field region: Alaska's North Slope, Bristol Bay. Ethnic group: Inupiaq and Yup'ik people
Research interests: Marine anthropology, environmental anthropology, history and culture of Alaska Native
people, political ecology, historical ecology, climate change, climate change politics,
environmental justice
Email: ihkemp@alaska.edu
Shiaki Kondo
Education: BA International Liberal Studies (2009) Waseda University; MA Literature (2011) Waseda
University (Thesis: Shape-Shifting Snakes and Bewitching Cats: Gift-giving, Retaliation,
and Marriage between Humans and Animals in Oki District, Shimane Prefecture, Japan);
PhD student
Dissertation Topic: Bird-Lovers in the Boreal Forest: Survival, Reciprocity and Otherness in Upper Kuskokwim
Region, Alaska
Research interests: Anthropology of religion, ethno-ornithology, non-human personhood, indigenized Christianity,
animal worship, interior Alaska, western Japan
Email: skondo @ alaska.edu
Personal website: https://researchmap.jp/skondo/?lang=english
Varpu Lotvonen
Education: Current PhD student; MA and BA in Folklore Studies (2012) University of Helsinki
Dissertation topic: Colonial encounters of the Sámi reindeer herders in Alaska and the making of Alaskan
pastoral traditions
Research interests: Cultural and visual anthropology, circumpolar North, reindeer herding, colonialism,
post-humanistic anthropology, folklore and oral history
Email: vmlotvonen@alaska.edu
Nick S. Schmuck
Education : BA in History, Classical/Medieval/Renaissance Studies Minor (2010) Messiah College;
MA in Medieval Archaeology (2012) University of York, UK (MA Thesis: Lost in the Landscape:
Where the Dead Reside in Late Iron Age Bornholm); Ph.D. student. Focus: Late Pleistocene/Early
Holocene Archaeology of Southeast Alaska)
Research Interests: High latitude archaeology, Landscape Archaeology, behavioral modeling applications
in GIS, coastal adaptation and human response to sea-Level change
Dougless Skinner
Education: Current MA student; BA Anthropology (2016) University of Montana
Thesis Topic: Pre-Colonial Activity Systems at Temyiq Tuyuryak: Indigenous Archaeological Approaches
to Artifact and Household Analysis
Research interests: Indigenous Theories and Methodologies; Archaeology of the Arctic and Subarctic; Subsistence
Practices; Human/Environmental Relationships; Gender Relationships; Decolonizing Academia
Email: dskinner2@alaska.edu
Gerad Smith
Education: Current PhD candidate, MA Anthropology (2012) University of Alasks Fairbanks
Dissertation Topic: Exploring Mid to Late Holocene Economic Shifts and Cultural Change at Swan Point,
Tanana Valley, Alaska
Research Interests: ethnoarchaeology, faunal/lithic analysis, feature reconstruction, footprint analysis,
traditional place name reconstruction
Email: gmsmith2@alaska.edu
Holly Smith
Education: Current MA student, BA Archaeology and Anthropology (2010) Wilfrid Laurier University,
Ontario
Thesis Topic: Analyzing Human Responses to the Northern White River Ash Eruption through Palynology
of 6-Mile Lake and Excavations at the Forty Mile Site
Research Interests: archaeology of the subarctic and arctic, hunter-gatherers, faunal analysis, GIS,
archaeological science, pollen analysis, human/environmental interaction, ice-patch
archaeology
Email: hasmith6@alaska.edu
Tara Palmer Smith
Education: M.Ed. Adult Education, University of Alaska Anchorage; BA French Language & Certificate
in Teaching English as a Second Language, Portland State University
Dissertation Topic: Adult ESL Teachers' Language Ideologies, Policies, & Practices
Research interests: Language ideologies, language policies, language & identity
Email: tmsmith@alaska.edu
Mary Ashley Stough
Education: Current MA student; BA Anthropology and Psychology (2019) Tulane University
Thesis topic: Evolution of Dentition in South Asia and the Linguistic Implications
Research interests: skeletal biology, forensic anthropology, bioarchaeology, paleopathology, dental anthropology,
and trauma
Email: mastough@alaska.edu
Lisa Strecker
Education: MA University of Hamburg, Germany (Thesis: Ethnobotany of Kamchatka); PhD student
Dissertation topic: Northern adaptations in Kamchatka: fishing for sled dogs or fishing for snow-machines?
Research interests: ethnoecology, sled dog husbandry in the Arctic, ethnohistory, historical scientific
accounts of the Russian Far East, ethnobotany, invasion biology
Email: lstrecker @ alaska.edu
Rachel Melinda Turner
Education: Current PhD student; MS Child Development (2016) University of California, Davis;
MSW (2011) Humboldt State University; Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Communication
(2004) University of California, Davis
Dissertation Topic: Gendered and Cultured Expressions of Emotional Distress
Research interests: Anthropology of Gender, Anthropology of Suicide, Colonization,
Masculinity, Cross-Cultural Psychiatry, Global Mental Health, Critical Medical Anthropology
Email: rmturner4@alaska.edu
Lynn Walker
Education: BA Anthropology (2013) Alma College; MRes Social Anthropology (2014) University of
Aberdeen; Museum Studies Certificate (2016) Tufts University; PhD student
Research Interests: museum anthropology; material culture; colonialism; Alutiiq/Sugpiaq weaving/basketry;
museum discourse and experience
Email: lawalker5 @ alaska.edu
Jonah Yakunin
Education: Current MA student; BA Fisheries (2018) University of Alaska Fairbanks
Thesis Topic: The changes in the culture of the Russian Old Believers in Alaska from involvement
with Alaska's commercial fisheries. How a culture whose primary purpose of escape
to Alaska was to avoid assimilation but became entrenched in the fishing industry
and thriving because of it. At the present, the Russian Old Believer community in
the Kenai Peninsula has become synonymous with fishing.
Research interests: Ethnohistory; fisheries; folklore; history; Russian culture; and theology
Email: jnyakunin2@alaska.edu
Eduard Zdor
Education: Current PhD student; Diploma Degree (History), Moscow University for the Humanities
Dissertation Topic: A hundred years after Bogoras: an indigenous Marxist perspective
on the post-Soviet Chukchi
Research interests: The history and culture of the Bering Strait Region indigenous people; subsistence-oriented
knowledge of the Arctic indigenous people; the correlation between traditional subsistence,
language, and the identity of the Arctic indigenous people
Email: ezdor@alaska.edu