Concentrations

As an anthropology major or minor, you can explore all the wide-ranging courses in our curriculum or concentrate in two new concentrations at the intersection of Medical Anthropology (Health and Culture) and Business Anthropology (Design and Exchange).

Health and Culture

By specializing in this unique medical anthropology concentration you learn cultural and biological insights that shape human experiences of pain, illness, and healing. The anthropology of health and culture investigates the social, political, and economic contexts that shape health practices and medical systems. These perspectives provide unique career advantages for many organizations including hospitals, museums, governments, NGOs, and international agencies. For global and community health careers, a background in medical anthropology is invaluable for doctors, epidemiologists, health care specialists, public health professionals, research scientists, and many other fields

Brochure for the health and culture concentration

  • Clair Starnecki during her Field Museum internship
    Susan Blum sustainability and food, wellbeing, childhood and education, global justice
  • Catherine Bolten human-animal entanglements, global health, food and ecological security
  • Lee Gettler biological anthropology, neurobiology, behavioral endocrinology, reproductive physiology
  • Cara Ocobock human biology, biological anthropology, energetics, ecological physiology, thermoregulation
  • Mark Schurr stable isotope analysis, archaeological chemistry, human adaptation
  • Aidan Seale-Feldman medical anthropology, mental health, psychic life; and biopolitics
  • Susan Sheridan biological anthropology, diet and disease, health and adaptation
  • Vania Smith-Oka medical anthropology, globalization & health, ethnomedicine, anthropology of reproduction

"My experience as an ND Anthropology major has been invaluable... Working at a hospital that treats underserved communities, my anthropology experience has allowed me to realize the diverse worldviews of those I am caring for, enabling me to give the patient and their families the best care possible."

— Daniel Schmitt, MD, Orthopaedic Surgery Resident Physician at Loyola University Medical Center, ND Biology & Anthropology Major.

Business Anthropology

This concentration specializes in the intersection of trade, exchange, and design by studying organizational behavior and cultural practices of consumption. Business anthropologists work with for-profit and non-profit organizations, such as technology companies and humanitarian agencies as well as with local, state, and federal government and non-government organizations.

Brochure for the business anthropology concentration

  • Building with murals covering the wall
    Maurizio Albahari immigration and its political economy; international relations
  • Christopher Ball political economy of language, possession and exchange, Amazonian development
  • Susan Blum education and economics, food production and consumption
  • Alex Chávez music consumption, immigration, and Latinas/os in the United States
  • Meredith Chesson material culture, consumption, socioeconomic inequality, and heritage studies
  • Donna Glowacki archaeology of development, sustainability, and exchange
  • Mark Golitko social networks, human-environment systems, archaeometry, social network analysis
  • Eric Haanstad global media, transnational security, organizational culture, and cultural marketing
  • Ian Kuijt social inequality, historical and archaeological trade networks, visual production
  • Rahul Oka development, economics, trade and exchange, network analysis, poverty
  • Luis Filipe R. Murillo data science, hacking, open-source collaboration and information
    security,

"My anthropology training at ND was the key to my success during my tenure at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It informed how I shaped scientific programs so that they could successfully move into the field testing and then scaled deployment."

— Fil (Filippo) Randazzo, CEO and Founder of Leverage Science, LLC, ND Anthropology Major