GW Anthropology alumna Amanda Eller gets article published and Undergraduate Peri Buch awarded Fulbright Scholarship

The article written by Amanda Eller is titled: Transactional sex and sexual harassment between professors and students at an urban university in Benin. It was published in the Culture, Health & Sexuality: An International Journal for Research, Intervention and Care. Eller discusses the relationships between female students and their professors. She analyzes the determination of power and how it affects the professor's ability to determine consent as well as why the professor, in these cases, is perceived as the victim.

The link to the article is posted below.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13691058.2015.1123295

_____________________________________

Undergraduate Peri Buch, a senior in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences double-majoring in Archaeology and History, has been awarded the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship. She will be studying at the University of Haifa in Israel while on this grant. Peri has worked on multiple archaeological digs in Israel with GW's Dr. Eric Cline, including his sites at Megiddo and tel-Kabri.

Publication on Running!

CASHP doctoral candidate Kevin Hatala, alumna Heather Dingwall, and Chair and Professor Brian Richmond, along with James Madison University professor Roshna Wunderlich, published a paper in PLOS One last month. The paper, entitled “Variation in Foot Strike Patterns during Running among Habitually Barefoot Populations,” discusses the strike pattern during running. The researchers carried out the project in northern Kenya with the help of the Daasanach people, who grow up barefoot. Scholars have long hypothesized that populations who grow up wearing shoes move their feet differently during walking and running than peoples who grow up without shoes. The results demonstrate that the Daasanach people strike their heel first during slow running, though they strike with the middle and front of the foot when speed increases. 

The publication is available at: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0052548

The publication was also covered by several news outlets, see the following to see their takes on this article:

23 Jan 13  New York Times, Gretchen Reynolds, "Is There One Right Way to Run?"  (http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/is-there-one-right-way-to-run/)

21 Jan 13  Washington Post, Lenny Bernstein, "‘Minimalist’ running style may be undermined by new findings from Kenya."  (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/minimalist-running-style-may-be-undermined-by-new-findings-from-kenya/2013/01/18/e1f4100c-60d2-11e2-b05a-605528f6b712_story.html)

11 Jan 13  Outside, Joe Spring, Adventure Lab, "Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Barefoot Running Form."  (http://www.outsideonline.com/blog/fitness/challenging-the-conventional-wisdom-on-barefoot-running-form.html)

10 Jan 13  Runner's World, Amby Burfoot, "New Study Reaches Different Conclusion On Kenyan Foot Strikes." (http://www.runnersworld.com/barefoot-running-minimalism/new-study-reaches-different-conclusion-kenyan-foot-strikes)

9 Jan 13  Scientific American, Katherine Harmon, "Some Barefoot Runners Tip Orthodoxy Back on Heels."  (http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2013/01/09/some-barefoot-runners-tip-orthodoxy-back-on-heels/)

9 Jan 13  Yahoo! News, Katherine Harmon, "Some Barefoot Runners Tip Orthodoxy Back on Heels." (http://news.yahoo.com/barefoot-runners-tip-orthodoxy-back-heels-223500291.html)

9 Jan 13  Science Daily, Lee Dye, "Variation Found in Foot Strike Patterns in Predominantly Barefoot Runners." (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130109185856.htm)

Research by 2010 Lewis N. Cotlow Fund Awardees Featured in Huffington Post

Research conducted by recent GW alumni and 2010 Lewis N. Cotlow Award recipients Elizabeth Nistico (BA Int'l Affairs, 2011) and Samuel Schall (BA Int'l Affairs, 2011) was highlighted in an article detailing "Sugar Daddy" relationships in the August 1, 2011 Huffington Post.

The article states:

"As two enterprising anthropology undergraduates at George Washington University, Elizabeth Nistico and Samuel Schall tackled the phenomenon of sugar daddy culture for a recent school project. Schall studied young, gay sugar babies, and Nistico explored the straight scene. Of their study's 100 participants, more than half said the money they received financed their education. On average, the relationships lasted between three and four months.

Nistico found that some of the sugar babies used the excuse of the economic downturn for behavior she thinks they would still have otherwise condoned. 'We concluded that people who say they have a sugar daddy to pay off their loans are people who would already contemplate being in that relationship if the economy was doing just fine,' says Nistico, whose subjects frequently mentioned the recession, a bad economy or debt as motivating factors in their decisions."

In 2010, Nistico and Schall received a Lewis N. Cotlow Award to support their project: "Sugar Daddies: The Reality of Affluent Cross-Generational Relationships in New York City"

The project examined how members of the Sugar Daddy culture in New York City view their relationships in a wider cultural context and how they conceptualize love, sex, survival and personal identity in the realm of the relationships.

The full article can be accessed online at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/29/seeking-arrangement-college-students_n_913373.html

More information on the Lewis N. Cotlow Fund for Student Research, including past projects, can be found at http://www.gwu.edu/~anth/atgw/cotlow.cfm

2011 Rogers Excavation Scholarship Recipients

The Anthropology Department is pleased to announce the 2011 Rogers Excavation Scholarship recipients, who will participate in archaeological fieldwork at sites in the U.S., Israel, Mexico, Belize, Kenya, and Greece during Summer 2011.

Joaille Araujo (B.A. Anth / Intl Affairs)
Alexandria, VA. Director: Pamela Cressey

Rebecca Biermann (B.A. Anth)
Oaxaca, Mexico. Director: Jeffrey Blomster

Sarah Cahlan (B.A. Archaeology)
Tel Kabri, Israel. Director: Eric Cline

Charlotte Doney (B.A. Anth)
Say Kah, Belize. Director: Linda Brown

Gabriela Farias (B.A. Arch / Geology)
Tel Kabri, Israel. Director: Eric Cline

Cheyenne Lewis (B.A. Arch / B.S. Bio Anth)
Astypalaia, Greece. Director: Simon Hillson

Lisa Mangiarelli (B.A. Arch)
Say Kah, Belize. Director: Linda Brown

Katie Paul (M.A. Anth)
Tel Kabri, Israel. Director: Eric Cline

Laurel Poolman (B.A. Arch / Anth)
Tel Kabri, Israel. Director: Eric Cline

Madeline Shaffer (B.A. Arch)
Say Kay, Belize. Director: Linda Brown

Harrison Ward (B.S. Bio Anth)
Koobi Fora (Director: Brian Richmond) and Olorgesailie (Director: Alison Brooks), Kenya.

The Rogers Excavation Scholarship provides funding for undergraduate or graduate students to do fieldwork in archaeology. Preference is given to those participating in an excavation for the first time and to those working with GW faculty. This scholarship, administered through the Capitol Archaeological Institute, was established in 2011 through the generosity of alumni Deborah Lehr and John Rogers.

2011 Lewis N. Cotlow Recipients

The Anthropology Department is pleased to announce the 2011 recipients of Lewis N. Cotlow Awards for anthropological research. The following students will conduct research during the coming months and will present highlights of their findings at the annual conference on student research, which is held on the Friday of Colonials Weekend in October 2011:

Tanvi Avasthi (B.A./M.A. Anth): Identity Politics among Progressive Indian Clinicians
Advisor: Barbara Miller

Carrie Benjamin (M.A. Anth): Talibés and Marabouts: Children's Rights, Development, and Local Perspectives in Saint-Louis, Senegal
Advisors: David Gow and Ilana Feldman

Heather Dingwall (B.S. Bio Anth and B.A. Arch): Analysis of Homo erectus Fossil Footprints from Ileret, Kenya, in the Context of Unshod Daasanach Experimental Prints
Advisor: Brian Richmond

Justin Greco (B.S. Bio Sci and B.A. Arch): Determining Site-Status via Analysis of Maya Ceramics from Say Kah, Belize
Advisors: Jeffrey Blomster and Linda Brown

Cheyenne Lewis (B.S. Bio Anth and B.A. Arch): Use of Dorsal Parturition Pits as a Female Characteristic on the Human Pelvis
Advisor: Douglas Ubelaker

Kate Markham (B.S. Bio Anth): Monitoring Nitrogen and Energy Balance in Wild Bornean Orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii) in a Peat Swamp
Advisor: Erin Vogel

Alicia O'Brien (B.A. Int Aff): Describing the Gap: The Impact of Identity and Culture for Individuals with Cognitive Disabilities after Transitioning from School
Advisors: Frances Norwood and Barbara Miller

Danielle Pelaez (B.A. Int Aff): 21st Century Pilgrims: Exploring the Transmutation from the Religious Pilgrim to the Secular Adventurer
Advisor: Catherine Allen

Claire Ragozzino (B.A. Intl Aff): West Meets East: The Effects of Western Commodification of Yoga on Indian Yogic Identity and Practice
Advisors: Barbara Miller and Frances Norwood

Rebecca Remis (B.A. Intl Aff): The Chinese Experience in the Organic Movement: A Case Study of Little Donkey Farm
Advisors: Barbara Miller and Robert Shepherd

Tatiana Reyes (B.A. Intl Aff): Working Women: An Ethnography of Tourism and Its Impact on the Women of San Juan del Sur
Advisors: Catherine Timura, Robert Shepherd, Barbara Miller

Kristina Short (M.A. Anth): Materializing Social identity: Ceramic Figurines at Middle and Late Formative Etlatongo
Advisor: Jeffrey Blomster

Since 1990, the Lewis N. Cotlow Field Research Fund has supported over 150 anthropological research projects by GW students in nearly 50 countries. The Fund was created by a $150,000 bequest from the estate of Lewis Cotlow (1898-1987), an explorer, author, and filmmaker who attended GW.

Heather Dingwall Receives Luther Rice Collaborative Fellowship

The Anthropology Department would like to offer its congratulations to Heather Dingwall, undergraduate double major in Biological Anthropology and Archaeology, who received a Luther Rice Collaborative Fellowship for the 2011-2012 academic year.

Her project, to be completed under the direction of Dr. Brian Richmond, will involve conducting running and walking experiments using unshod Daasanach subadults in Ileret, Kenya in order to determine how gait, speed, and foot morphology influence the formation and morphology of footprints. Ultimately, the resulting data will provide a comparative context for the analysis of fossil hominin footprints (namely, the footprints from Ileret that have been attributed to H. erectus). In addition, she will assist with the further excavation of the fossil footprint surfaces at Ileret during Summer 2011.

The Rice Fellowships offer support for student-initiated research carried out in collaboration with, and under the guidance of, at least one faculty mentor.

Dr. Catherine Allen Awarded a Specialist Fulbright Grant

Dr. Catherine Allen, Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs, has been awarded a Specialist Fulbright Grant to spend a month at Catholic University in Lima. She will offer a five-week seminar on the subject of Thought, Action, and Landscape in the Andes, for students enrolled in the master and doctoral Program in Andean Studies. Additionally, she will offer one or more presentations on her current research as part of the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Seminar to be held for one week in Pisac (Cuzco ) in 2011. Finally, she will meet with faculty and graduate students at PUCP (Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru) who specialize in Andean visual and performing arts.

13th Annual Lewis N. Cotlow Conference

The Anthropology Department held its 13th annual Lewis N. Cotlow Student Research Conference on October 15, 2010. The annual conference provides students with an opportunity to present findings to an audience of fellow students and faculty members.

Presentations given this year by undergraduate and graduate students spanned a diverse range of topics:

• The militarization of Guam and Chamoru social movements

• The genetics of a Siberian population

• Gender ideology among Asians in Vancouver

• Punk Islam

• Spiritual healing in Brazil

• Educational and employment opportunities for woman in India

• Derussification in the Ukraine

• Asexuality

• Sugar daddy relationships in New York City

• Catholic and Muslim immigrants in Sweden

• Brain connectivity and myelin-associated proteins in human evolution

• West Coast Swing vs. Lindy Hop

• Bone structure and human locomotion

• Obstetric fistula surgery

• Fossil footprints

• Trabecular bone architecture in mammals adapted to speed and endurance

• Tracking age-related changes in endocrine function in primates

Abstracts for many past Cotlow Projects and information about the Lewis N. Cotlow Field Research Fund are available on the Anthropology Department website.

Since its establishment in 1990 by a bequest of $150,000 from the estate of Lewis Cotlow, an explorer, author, and filmmaker who attended GW. The Lewis Cotlow Fund has aided more than 150 students in conducting anthropological research throughout the world.

The faculty and staff of the Anthropology Department would like to congratulate all presenters on a job well done!

2006 Cotlow Award Recipient Releases Report on HIV/AIDS in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area

Dana Thomson (BA Int'l Affairs, 2008), a 2006 Lewis B. Cotlow Award recipient whose research involved a comparative study of HIV/AIDS care organizations in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, recently released a report entitled "HIV/AIDS in the Washington, DC metropolitan area: Whitman-Walker Clinics, 2007". This report, building upon Ms. Thomson's previous research, summarizes demographic, medical, social, economic, and geographic characteristics of people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS at Whitman-Walker's three clinics in 2007. The report is unique for its social determinants framework and use of maps to summarize HIV/AIDS data.

Ms. Thomson is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Global Health and Population from the Harvard School of Public Health. She is hopeful that the data and methods from this report can be utilized by the DC HIV/AIDS community and beyond.

Key findings, the full report, and a list of upcoming presentations can be found at: http://dchivaids.wordpress.com/

Hedwig Waters (BA 2009) receives Fulbright award

Alumna Hedwig Waters, who received a B.A. in Anthropology with Special Honors in January 2009, recently was awarded a Fulbright award to support eight months of research in Mongolia. She will travel to Mongolia in January 2011 to study women's health and the changing images of female beauty and body ideals. This summer, prior to starting her research, she will be studying intensive Russian and Mongolian.

Grad Student Matt LeDuc Receives Fulbright Award to Work in India

Matt LeDuc (MA 2010) was recently awarded a Fulbright scholarship to conduct research in India. He will explore the politics of cultural heritage and the effects of tourism in the town of Hampi, India. Once the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Hampi provides an important case study of the overlapping and sometimes competing interests of cultural heritage preservation, economic development, and “archaeological tourism.”

Matt, an International Development concentrator and teaching assistant, got his B.A. degree in Anthropology from the University of Michigan.

Warren Awards Announced; Eight Students Funded for Summer 2010

The Departments of Anthropology and of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations are pleased to announce the 2010 winners of fellowships for archaeological research. This year, all the students will be working in Israel or Jordan. The winners are:

Joseph DiVirgilio (B.A. candidate, undeclared): Megiddo, Israel

Amanda Kemble (B.A. candidate, Anthropology): Megiddo

Samantha Malone (B.A. candidate, undeclared): Megiddo

Joseph Mazzariello (B.A. candidate, Archaeology): Megiddo

Clara Merchant (B.A. candidate, Anthropology): Megiddo

Katie Paul (M.A. candidate, Anthropology): Megiddo

Kyle Tomanio (B.A. candidate, Anthropology): Megiddo

Jonathan Warner (B.A., undeclared): Bir Madhkur, Jordan

This is the third year Warren awards have been made. The endowment was created by a generous gift from William Warren, a retired Foreign Service Officer, who received a B.A. in 1967 from what is now the Elliott School of International Affairs. He was American Consul in Adana, Turkey, served as Charge d'Affaires of the American Embassy in the Solomon Islands and in Samoa, and held other overseas posts. Warren established two awards, the Thomas and Ola Herbert Reidling Undergraduate Award for B.A. or B.S. candidates and the Zelma Reidling Warren Bannister and William Warren Graduate Fellowship Award for M.A. and Ph.D. candidates.

For more information, visit the Warren Fellowship page of the Anthropology Department website: http://www.gwu.edu/~anth/atgw/warren.cfm

Excavations by GW students and Prof. Eric Cline show Aegean influences in Bronze Age Canaan

The Canaanite city of Tel Kabri, occupied around 3500 years ago, has yielded novel evidence of contact with the Bronze Age Aegean. The most exciting finds were hundreds of fresco fragments and a floor painted in a Greek style.

Twenty-eight GW students worked at the site last summer with Prof. Eric H Cline.

For a detailed report in GW Today, go to http://www.gwu.edu/explore/gwtoday/aroundtheworld/uncoveringanancientcivilization

Hom Pal student Tyler Faith published in "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences"

J. Tyler Faith (Hominid Paleobiology doctoral candidate) co-wrote an article in the November 23 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences exploring the mass mammalian extinction of the late Pleistocene. He and Todd Surovell, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Wyoming, examined "Synchronous extinction of North America's Pleistocene mammals" explores the mass extinction during the late Pleistocene. Faith and Surovell's findings indicate the mass extinction took place between 13.8 and 11.4 thousand years ago, a geological instant. Furthermore, the findings support the idea that human overkill, comet impact, or other rapid events caused this massive extinction, instead of a slow attrition.

Natalie Mueller (BA 2009) finishes archaeological field school

Natalie Mueller (BA Anth and IAFF 2009) just finished archaeological field school through the University of Oregon. She was assisting on research in the Salmon River Valley, which is controversially dated to 12,000BP. The aim of the research goal was to clarify the chronology of the river valley. She is now applying to graduate schools.

Douglas Post Park (BA 2005) on the Timbuktu Expedition Project

Congratulations to Douglas Post Park (BA Arch and Anth 2005) on his continuing adventures serving as director for the Timbuktu Expedition Project, which can be found at: http://timbuktuexpeditionproject.org/Site/About_TEP.html

According to its website, this project aims to:

"generate a pluralistic dialogue between the numerous ethnic and corporate groups inhabiting the area surrounding the Niger Bend region. TEP endeavors to increase awareness of 1) the importance of preserving, researching, and understanding the region’s archaeology and cultural patrimony, 2) the long-term effects of local anthropogenic environmental change and 3) how to create a sustainable tourism that beneficially affects the latter two points."

Douglas is a Ph.D candidate in Anthropological Archaeology at Yale and over more than eight seasons has carried out excavations in countries ranging from China to Greece.

Faculty Spotlight: What We're Doing

Robin Bernstein organized and chaired a symposium in August on ‘Primate Body Size: A Multiple-Level Perspective’ at the 22nd Congress of the International Primatological Society, in Edinburgh.

Alexander Dent recently completed an exploratory period of fieldwork in Brazil for a new project, funded by GWU’s University Facilitating Fund

2008-2009: "Camelô Campinas: The Politics of the Informal Economy is São Paulo, Brazil"

Mark Edberg collaborated with UNICEF (Latin America-Caribbean Region) to develop a theoretical rationale, framework, and data indicators for data that UNICEF should collect to monitor the health/well-being of youth and adolescents (approximately ages 10-24) as part of its role monitoring progress related to the Convention on Rights of the Child, Millenium Development Goals, and other conventions. He presented the work to a region-wide meeting at UNICEF headquarters in Panama City, Panama in early October.

Mark Edberg is co-PI of a new CDC-funded project to work with a national panel and develop a research agenda that connects macroeconomic factors to youth violence. He is also co-PI on a new NIH-RO1 grant related to gender-based violence in the Latino community.

Richard Grinker served on the Review Board for the Autism Speaks Foundation, and acted as recommender for Macarthur Foundation Fellowships.

Richard Grinker (and Peter Hotez) were mentioned in the dedication to Paul Offit’s ‘Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure’ (Columbia University Press), as “real heroes—and true prophets.”

Chet Sherwood and collaborators at Wayne State University have recently been awarded a 5-year National Science Foundation-HOMINID grant to study the evolutionary origins of the brain energetics and adaptive plasticity of humans:

2008-2013: PI (collaborative with Morris Goodman, Wayne State University); “Evolutionary origins of the brain energetics and adaptive plasticity of humans”; National Science Foundation: HOMINID Program (total: $2,480,919; Sherwood subproject: $709,802)


Chet Sherwood, Francys Subiaul (Speech and Hearing Science), and Tad Zawidzki (Philosophy) were awarded a GWU Research Enhancement Fund grant to establish the Mind-Brain-Evolution Center, a new interdisciplinary research group that investigates the evolutionary origins of the human mind.

2008-2011: “Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Evolutionary Origins of the Human Mind”; collaborative with T.W. Zawidzki (Philosophy) and F. Subiaul (Speech and Hearing Science); Research Enhancement Fund ($104,250)

Joel Kuipers was the Principal Investigator on an award from SRI International.

2008 “Developing a semiotic framework for how people learn across settings
over time: An interdisciplinary collaboration of researchers.” ($92,000)

Steven Lubkemann was awarded funding from the Ford Foundation for work on a project that will locate and initiate the scientific documentation of several shipwrecks that foundered along the southern African coast during the second half of the nineteenth century while involved in the international slave trade, providing an invaluable contribution to the study of one of the most consequential social processes in global history. The project will also assist its local partners in the development of a cultural resource management program that will preserve and protect this irreplaceable heritage while also rendering it accessible to a worldwide public. Finally the project will help regional partners develop a collaborative regional plan for further developing their heritage tourism sector with these unique resources. Through the scientific documentation, preservation, and protection of these resources for public benefit this project will result in substantial benefits to local, national and regional economies.
2008-2010: “The Southern African Slave Wrecks Route Project”; collaborative with
IZIKO-South Africa, The US Park Service, Institute for International
Tourism Studies, and partner institutions in Mozambique and Angola

Steven Lubkemann was awarded funding from the United States Institute for Peace, on the second phase of a collaborative research project which is examining customary legal institutions and practices and their interactions with the formal legal system in post-conflict Liberia.

2008-2009: “Current Practices of Justice and the Quest for Rule of Law: Policy
Options for Liberia's First Post-Conflict Decade.”

Peter Lucas was awarded a grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

2008-2010 “The fracture modes of human teeth”; collaborative with James Lee.

Robert Shepherd ran a field school in China this past summer. Fourteen undergraduates from Columbian College, the Elliot School, and the School of Business spent one month at the Beijing International Studies University, studying Chinese and the anthropology of development. As part of this course, they then spent one week in Inner Mongolia and Shanxi Province, visiting several World Heritage sites being promoted by Chinese authorities as tourist destinations as part of development efforts. These included the Yunggang Buddhist caves and Xuán Kong Sì Monastary, which date from the fifth century Northern Wei Dynasty, and Wutai Mountain, whose temple complexes date to the ninth century Tang Dynasty.