Latest News
Follow us on Facebook
Alumnus Lee Gettler to Join Notre Dame Faculty
March 19, 2012 • Aaron Smith 
Biological anthropologist Lee Gettler ’05 made national news last year with his research on the linkage between fatherhood and testosterone, reporting that the hormone decreases in men once they have children and drops even more in dads who are very active in caring for their kids.
Read full article
Anthropology Alumni Awarded Prestigious NSF Fellowships
March 19, 2012 • Chris Milazzo 
The extensive research opportunities available to undergraduates in Notre Dame’s Department of Anthropology played a key role in helping two recent graduates—Collin McCabe ’10 and Claire Brown ’11—win fellowships from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Read full article
Archaeologist Meredith Chesson ‘Follows the Pots’
March 19, 2012 • Mark Shuman 
Notre Dame Associate Professor Meredith S. Chesson investigates the extensive looting—mostly by economically struggling local residents—that for decades has affected the area in and around the Jordanian cemetery at Fifa. Her work questions traditional ways of thinking about both archaeologists and looters.
Read full article
Alumni Reflections: Pursuing Graduate Work Overseas
March 19, 2012 • Neva Lundy 
Four years ago, I was a nervous freshman in flip-flops and a sundress trying desperately to find a seat in Professor [James] McKenna’s crowded Introduction to Anthropology class at Notre Dame. Still breathless from my circuitous journey from Lyons to Haggar Hall, I was unaware that such a hapless beginning had irrevocably set my feet upon the winding path toward a future in anthropology.
Read full article
Susan Blum Explores Learning In and Out of School
March 19, 2012 • Aaron Smith 
A two-day working conference titled Learning In and Out of School: Education Across the Globe will bring a dozen researchers to the Notre Dame campus May 22–23 to share and discuss a broad range of perspectives on the nature of learning.
“We’re taking a critical look at conventional schooling and bringing insights from other domains to understand human learning and to improve schooling—which is one of my goals as a teacher and researcher,” says organizer Susan Blum, professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology.
Read full article
Anthropology Interns Explore Career Possibilities
March 19, 2012 • Alex Kilpatrick 
Anthropology majors at the University of Notre Dame took their studies from the theoretical to the practical last summer, completing internships that had them doing archaeological fieldwork in Mongolia, cataloging artifacts in Chicago’s Field Museum, and collecting the oral histories of Irish immigrants on Beaver Island, Mich.
Read full article
Anthropology Major Catalogs Native American Artifacts
March 19, 2012 • Joanna Basile 
After years of neglect and collecting dust, Native American artifacts at the Morristown National Historical Park have finally been rediscovered because of the work of Carleigh Moore, a senior anthropology major at the University of Notre Dame.
Read full article
Anthropologist Vania Smith-Oka Wins Global Citizenship Award
February 03, 2012 •Joanna Basile 
Vania Smith-Oka, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, has been awarded the Center for Public Anthropology’s Ruth Benedict Global Citizenship Award—an honor granted to just one percent of faculty teaching introductory anthropology courses across the United States.
Read full article
Read full article (Arts & Letters)
Notre Dame Student Wins Poster Competition at AAA Meetings
Congratulations to Morgan Iddings, who was one of four students to win the poster competition by the Society for Visual Anthropology at the American Anthropological Association meetings in November! Morgan's poster detailed her work on "Changes in Household Consumption Practices in Post-Communist Bulgaria."
Notre Dame Among Top Producers of Fulbrights
December 01, 2011 • Arts and Letters

University of Notre Dame students were awarded 13 Fulbright grants
for the 2011-12 academic year, placing the University among the top
universities in the nation. Eleven of the 13 are from the College of
Arts and Letters, including anthropology major Jaime Cordes.
Read full article (Arts & Letters)
Students Help Notre Dame Archaeologist Unearth Ancient Artifacts in Albania
October 12, 2011 • Mark Shuman

On the final day of his latest six-week excavation season in historic
Butrint, Albania, University of Notre Dame Assistant Professor David
Hernández says “the face of a goddess appeared.”
The four assistants who had a hand in the discovery?
Suzanna Pratt, Patrick Conry, Matt Wieck, and Wesley Wood—all undergraduates in Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters.
Read full article (Notre Dame News)
Read full article (Arts & Letters)
Somali Militant Beatings Worsen Spiral of Famine as Refugees Flee Drought

ND in the News
Businessweek, August 16, 2011
Bloomberg, August 16, 2011
(Rahul Oka, Assistant Professor of anthropology)
Read Businessweek online article
Read Bloomberg online article
ND Expert Agustin Fuentes: “Planet of the Apes” fascination rooted in our
similarity to primates
Susan Guibert • Date: August 05, 2011

“Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” opening nationwide Friday, is expected to
be a summer blockbuster. So what’s the fascination with apes taking over? Why
not “Planet of the Dogs” or “Planet of the Seagulls?”
“The lure of the ‘Planet of the Apes’ movies lies in our fascination with the
possibility that we are not the only sentient beings on earth,” says University
of Notre Dame anthropologist Agustin
Fuentes, who specializes in human evolution and primatology.
Read Agustin Fuentes' faculty profile
Read full article (Notre Dame News)
Read full article (Arts & Letters)
Go Ahead, Let Your Kids Climb into Bed With Mom and Dad
ND in the News
Time Magazine, July 27, 2011
(James McKenna, Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C., Professor of Anthropology)
Read Time Magazine online article
Deb Rotman appointed director of ND’s Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement
Michael O. Garvey • Date: July 27, 2011

Deb Rotman, director of undergraduate studies for Notre Dame’s Department of Anthropology, has been appointed director of the Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement (CUSE).
Rotman joined the Notre Dame faculty in 2006. In addition to her
administrative responsibilities in the anthropology department, she has
taught courses on the experience of 19th century Irish immigrants in
America, working with her students on archival research, oral history
and archeological excavations in South Bend and Beaver Island, Mich.,
and during summer study visits to Ireland.
Read full article (Notre Dame News)
Somalia famine puts al Shabab in "tight corner," says ND anthropologist in Kenya
Susan Guibert • Date: July 25, 2011

By flip-flopping its position on which groups can provide
humanitarian aid to the thousands of starving Somalians, and forbidding
supplies from foreign agencies not currently working in its strongholds,
the al-Qaida-linked militant group al-Shabab is “playing an interesting
game,” says University of Notre Dame economic anthropologist Rahul Oka, who currently is in Kenya at the Kakuma Refugee Camp conducting fieldwork on trade and the distribution of relief supplies.
Read full article (Notre Dame News)
Read full article (Arts & Letters)
Anthropology Alumna Supports International Housing Initiative
July 14, 2011 • Renée LaReau

Stephanie Sluka Brauer ’97, who majored in anthropology and peace studies at the
University of Notre Dame, now lives and works in Pretoria, South Africa and helps house families in 18 countries as
the resource development manager for Habitat for Humanity
International’s Africa and Middle East regional office.
“Fundraising can be a powerful way to build peace,” says Brauer. “For many donors, this is a way to connect with
someone else’s reality halfway around the globe.”
Read full article (Arts & Letters)