Aseel Abulhab (she/her)
Linguistic Anthropology (Doctoral Student Fall 2022)
Regional Focus: Middle East
aseel.abulhab@northwestern.edu
Research Content: D/deafness; sign language; disability studies; immigration; refugees; resettlement
Current Graduate Students
Anthropology Graduate Student Association
The Northwestern Anthropology Graduate Student Association (est. 2012) is a student-run group that holds quarterly meetings for all anthropology graduate students, hosts occasional workshops and other events, and provides mentorship and orientation for new students. AGSA liaison committee members, elected yearly, coordinate activities and meet with faculty members on issues of interest to graduate students. The liaison committee can be reached at agsa.northwestern@gmail.com.
Ashley Ngozi Agbasoga (she/they)
PhD in Cultural Anthropology Spring 2022
Regional Focus: Latin America and the Caribbean/Abya Yala; México
ashleyagbasoga2021@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content: Ashley Ngozi Agbasoga's dissertation, titled We Dance With Existence: Black-Indigenous Placemaking in the Land Known as México and Beyond, illuminates how Black, Indigenous, and Black-Indigenous women engage in placemaking practices that reveal and unsettle notions of race, place, and (nation-) statehood in México. Merging ethnographic and archival research with theories and methodologies from Anthropology, History, Black Studies, and Native/Indigenous Studies, Agbasoga argues that Black-Indigenous placemaking practices create two critical ruptures: first, in the (re)produced bifurcation of blackness and indigeneity, and second, in the Mexican state's racialization of its territory as mestizo. This work contributes to conversations in Black and Indigenous studies, as well as a long history of Black/Indigenous political movements throughout the hemisphere and globally.
Michael Angland
Cultural Anthropology (Doctoral Student Fall 2020)
Regional Focus: Chicago, United States (Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi)
MichaelAngland2026@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
My dissertation project explores the ideology and practice of local community building in the contemporary United States. More specifically, it looks at how neighbourhood-based organisations construct local communities in relation to the material environment on the south west side of Chicago. The project explores how localism intersects with class and race-based politics in urban contexts in the United States.
Sofyan Ansori (he/him/his)
Cultural Anthropology (PhD Candidate 2022)
Regional Focus: Southeast Asia, Indonesia
SofyanAnsori2022@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
My dissertation project examines relationships between humans and fires in light of the current climate crisis. In particular, my research interrogates fire governance through the perspective of Ngaju people, an Indigenous community in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. My ethnographic work engages with how Indigenous subjects navigate their thoughts and actions between the burning forests, the vibrant fires, and the state’s ongoing desire to enforce anti-fire policies.
To learn more, see Google Scholar: Google Scholar | Twitter: @cappimpong
Jacob Aronoff
Biological Anthropology (PhD Candidate Winter 2021)
Regional Focus:
JacobAronoff2022@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Developmental plasticity and life history theory, quantifying brain energetics using ultrasound, developing a field-friendly cell culture method for studying inflammatory regulation
Bobbie Benavidez (she/her)
Biological Anthropology (Doctoral Student Fall 2019)
Regional Focus:
bobbiebenavidez2022@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content: Indigenous knowledge, human population genetics & health disparities.
Emily Barron
Biological Anthropology (Doctoral Student Fall 2021)
emilybarron2026@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content: Neurological health, adaptation, development, and evolution. Life history theory, intergenerational and transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, the embodiment of biosociality and its relationship to public policy
Sarah Breiter (she/her)
Archaeology (PhD Candidate Spring 2020)
Regional Focus: East Anglia, Suffolk, Bury St. Edmunds
SarahBreiter2017@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
I explore the environmental ideologies of the feudal to capitalist transition through standing buildings.
To learn more, see her project website: East Anglia Building Landscapes
Austin Bryan
Cultural Anthropology (Doctoral Student Fall 2018)
Regional Focus: Eastern Africa
AustinBryan2025@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Federalism, the East African Federation, and the development of a new territory of freedom
Margaret Butler (she/her)
Biological Anthropology (PhD Candidate Spring 2020)
Regional Focus: Chicagoland, Illinois, USA: Traditional homelands of the people of the Council of Three Fires, the Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Odawa; as well as the Menominee, Miami and Ho-Chunk
MargaretButler2023@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Margaret's research focuses on postpartum health, specifically related to human lactation. Applying mixed methods and a biosocial approach, her dissertation research examines the relationship between breastfeeding and postpartum depression among Chicagoland birthing parents participating in an on-going, hospital-based study. In addition to her graduate studies, Margaret became a certified lactation counselor in 2018 and is an active member of the Chicago Region Breastfeeding Task Force.
To learn more, visit Maggie's website | Twitter: @bioanthmags
Ca’la Connors
Biological Anthropology (Doctoral Student Fall 2022)
Regional Focus:
Research Content: Intergenerational stress transmission; Black women; African diaspora; Stress biology; Health disparities; Biocultural embodiment; Developmental plasticity; Racialization; Inequality; Intrauterine environments; Developmental Origins of Health and Disease
Kyle Craig (he/him)
Cultural Anthropology (PhD Candidate 2019)
Regional Focus: Middle East and North Africa (MENA); Amman, Jordan
KyleCraig2023@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
My dissertation examines the intersections of youth temporalities, the affective resonances of urban material, and the politics of public aesthetics via the graffiti/street art scene in Amman, Jordan. I attend to the multitude ways Amman-based graffiti/street artists channel their experiences of Amman as an "empty" city with high unemployment and scant spaces for youth leisure and creative expression into public art projects that for them represent small steps in the constitution of the ideal future city. One core impetus for this project is to underscore the need to move beyond the often restricting and romanticized framework of "resistance art" when examining the nexus between youth politics and aesthetics, particularly in the MENA region.
Alicia Fahrner (she/her)
Biological Anthropology (Doctoral Student Fall 2022)
Regional Focus:
aliciafahrner2027@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
I am interested in examining the health consequences of social inequalities. More specifically, how biosocial pathways such as race-based traumatic stress impact Black health and contribute to racialized health disparities.
Developmental Origins of Health and Disease; Intergenerational transmission of stress and trauma; epigenetic inheritances; developmental plasticity; anti-Black racism; micro-aggressions.
Foroogh Farhang
Cultural Anthropology (PhD Candidate Spring 2018)
Regional Focus: Middle East, Iran
forooghfarhang2015@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Social suffering, post-war trauma, ethnic/religious minorities
Julio Garcia-Solares
Cultural Anthropology (Doctoral Student Fall 2021)
juliogarciasolares2027@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content: My work is focused on Latinx experiences and meaning-making within metal and hardcore punk music scenes in the United States. Key terms: Latinx communities, United States, critical phenomenology, racism, diaspora, aesthetics
Livia Garofalo
Cultural Anthropology (PhD Candidate 2017)
Regional Focus: United States, Latin America
livia.garofalo@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), subjectivity, care, trauma, injury, the state
Gerpha Gerlin
Medical/MPH (Doctoral Student Fall 2020)
Regional Focus: United States, United Kingdom, Haiti
ggerlin@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
I am a PhD/MPH student & Science in Human Culture Cluster Fellow, working around issues related to psychiatric disease & disablement, identity politics, knowledge-production economies, and implementation science. I am crafting a multi-sited dissertation project that critically engages aspects and consequences of custodial care for psychiatric consumers, survivors, and ex-patients who have lost (or ''forfeited"), and are trying to recover, the ability to participate fully and freely in the world.
James Gibb (he/him/his)
Biological Anthropology (Doctoral Student Fall 2021)
jamesgibb2026@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
James' research broadly focuses on LGBTQ2+ population health, with a particular emphasis on understanding how social adversity, marginalization, and discrimination "gets under the skin" to influence variability in physiological function and patterns of health and disease among sexual and gender diverse peoples across their life-course. As a queer-identifying biological anthropologist, his research program is broadly motivated by his lived experience and desire to utilize his relative position of privilege to advance LGBTQ2+ equity and use his expertise in service to LGBTQ2+ communities.
To learn more about James' work, visit Researchgate.net | Google Scholar | Twitter: @JamesKGibb
Syd González (they/them)
Cultural Anthropology (Doctoral Student Fall 2020)
Houston, Texas (Sana, Karankawa, Coahuiltecan, Atakapa-Ishak)
sydneygonzalez2026@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Syd González is researching the material embodiment of masculinity among Latinx populations in Houston, Texas and surrounding areas. Their questions include: How is masculinity materially expressed among Latinx in Houston, Texas? How have embodiments of masculinity impacted queer Latinx identity in Houston, Texas? What role, if any, does masculinity play in informing expressions of queerness? The methodology they utilize is based on Linda Tuhiwai Smith's Indigenous research to promote a collaborative, community based research practice. They also utilize photo ethnography and participant employed photography in their project. Syd is also part of the Gender & Sexuality Graduate Cluster.
Bridgette Hulse (she/her)
Archaeology (Doctoral Student Fall 2019)
Regional Focus: England
BridgetteHulse2025@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
I research agency and meaning in Medieval English graffiti. I use a combination of agency/resistance theory, semiotics, and buildings archaeology to analyze graffiti in context. I'm also working with the Center for the Scientific Studies in the Arts to employ various imaging techniques for my research.
Şeyma Kabaoğlu (she/her)
Cultural Anthropology (PhD Candidate Summer 2020)
Regional Focus: Middle East and North Africa (MENA); Europe; Turkey
seymakabaoglu@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Seyma's research examines how people negotiate norms of ethical/pious finance in the everyday life of Islamic participation banking sector, in order to unpack relations of gender, class and ethnicity in terms of the changing political economy of Turkey. Her project explores the transformation of law and gendered norms of piety in the context of financial sectors of the MENA region, while highlighting previously invisible creative interpretative work Muslim women perform to create and maintain Islamic financial markets.
To learn more, follow Seyma on Twitter: @seymakabaoglu
Andrew Kim
Linguistic Anthropology (Doctoral Student Fall 2020)
Regional Focus:
andrewkim2025@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Sexuality/Gender; Race/Ethnicity; Embodiment; Intertextuality; Genre; Voice
Elizabeth Koselka (she/her)
Biological Anthropology (PhD Candidate Winter 2019)
Regional Focus: Spain
ElizabethKoselka2022@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Drawing from a broad interest in biosocial pathways that produce health disparities, Elizabeth’s dissertation research explores how social pressure to fit into society impacts young immigrants’ eating practices and health in Spain.
Keegan Krause (he/him)
Biological Anthropology (Doctoral Student Fall 2020)
Regional Focus: North America, Latin America and the Caribbean
keegankrause2025@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Keegan Krause MPH, MA, works at the intersections of human biology, medical anthropology, and public health. Keegan’s work traces how complex social processes and structural conditions are embodied during critical points of biological and psychosocial development, and manifest in adverse health experiences through the life course. His prior work explored political economies of health, violence, and im/migration in informal occupational settings in the Dominican Republic’s tourism sector, and food security in the Sonora-Arizona borderlands. His current research explores the embodiment of adverse experiences during childhood and adolescence in im/migration contexts, and implications for life course and intergenerational health.
To learn more, visit Keegan's Google Scholar | ResearchGate Profile
Jackson Krause (he/him)
Archaeology (Doctoral Student Fall 2021)
Metzabok Valley region of the Selva Lacandona, Chiapas, México
jacksonkrause2027@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
My dissertation research focuses on systems of water management and ecological sustainability at the Late Preclassic Maya site of Noh K'uh, Chiapas, México. I'll be looking at the ways in which human-environment relationships are sustained in the rainforest ecosystem of the Lacandon Jungle, particularly as it pertains to water accessibility throughout the Preclassic, into the Postclassic, and in the contemporary Lacandon Maya community of Metzabok. I also associate with the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research and am an advocate for non-exploitative community-driven archaeological heritage management within Indigenous communities. I have been working with the collaborative Metzabok Archaeological Project since 2016.
(Rita) Dela Kuma
Archaeology (PhD Candidate Spring 2019)
Regional Focus: Ghana
ritakuma2021@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Dela Kuma is a doctoral candidate in archaeology. Her research broadly investigates the positionality of Africans and their embodied practices in global encounters. Dela's dissertation examines how local notions of taste shaped the reception and consumption of new goods in the wake of the nineteenth century 'legitimate' trade in southeastern Ghana.
To learn more, visit Dela's website.
Andrew Leith (he/him)
Archaeology (Doctoral Student Fall 2021)
AndrewLeith2026@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Andrew Leith, MS Historic Preservation, MA Social Sciences, is a historical archaeologist, historic preservationist, and museum anthropologist with 18 years of professional experience. As a fifth-generation Chicagoan he has deep ties to local communities throughout the city, as well as an abiding commitment to first-voice histories, heritage, and preservation. Andrew was previously the Director of Cultural Programs and Museum Practice at the Chicago Cultural Alliance and prior to that worked in museum collections management in the Anthropology Department at the Field Museum. He has studied the interpretation and preservation of ruins, as well as researched grass roots preservation of the built environment at the Falmouth Heritage Renewal in Jamaica for US/ICOMOS. He is on the Board of Directors of the Camp Douglas Restoration Foundation, Chicago. Andrew is interested in material culture, critical heritage studies, memory, and community engagement. He is currently researching 19th and 20th century domestic food production in relation to industrial histories and legacies in the Chicagoland area.
Meng-rung Lin
Cultural Anthropology (Doctoral Student Fall 2021)
meng-runglin2026@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Meng-Rung Lin's current research interests focus on the extraction of value and the accumulation of capital in renewable energy. She asks how natural resources and social elements are being calculated as value in the energy market. She also examines the socio-political aspect of renewable energy, especially how these kinds of infrastructures introduced to Taiwan are related to the role of the country in geopolitics and the global market. She joined a research project focusing on how infrastructure and renewable energy rebuilds the labor consciousness and living conditions of fishermen through the offshore wind farm project introduced to the western coastline of Taiwan. In her previous research for her master's thesis, she conducted fieldwork in Phuket, Thailand, where she investigated the logics of capital accumulation and the regime of labor in Chinese-speaking tourism. Lin is especially interested in economic anthropology and political economy, in the topics of green capitalism, climate finance, and labor relations. From her previous works to her prospective research, Lin focuses on the questions about how political and economic power(or matters) interact with people's everyday lives, and how people imagine the future of living in a time of uncertainty.
Paula Maia (she/her)
Biological Anthropology (Doctoral Candidate fall 2018)
PaulaMaia2024@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content: My research focuses on the biocultural intersection of the microbiome and diet. Specifically, I am interested in how food (in)security shapes dietary strategies and, subsequently, impacts the gut microbiome and health. I address these questions using perspectives from foods studies, political ecology, and molecular biology.
Melissa Manus
PhD in Biological Anthropology summer 2022
Regional Focus: Chicago, IL, USA (original homeland of the Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Odawa people) and Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico (original homeland of the Totonac people)
MelissaManus2023@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
My research uses ecological and evolutionary perspectives to explore the development of the infant skin microbiome, with a focus on how social caregiving contributes to infant microbial acquisition. I use a mixed-methods approach that combines skin microbiome sample collection and detailed questionnaires in the field, microbial DNA analysis in the lab, bioinformatics, and social network analysis. I am particularly interested in applying my research to address the intersection of early-life microbial exposures and global health inequities.
To learn more, visit Melissa's website | Google Scholar
Kimberly McCabe
Biological Anthropology (PhD Candidate 2014)
Regional Focus: Cebu, the Philippines
kim.mccabe@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Urbanization, Infectious Disease, Health/Medicine, Inequality, Environment, Youth/Children
Shelby Mohrs (she/her)
Archaeology (Doctoral Student Fall 2020)
Regional Focus: East Africa: Jamhuri wa Kenya (Kenya) & Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania (Tanzania)
shelbymohrs2026@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Shelby is an archaeology student whose research uses paleoethnobotanical techniques to study how and what people in the past were eating and their everyday lives. Her current research focuses on the historical foodways of city-states of the Swahili Coast. Other research interests include ethnoarchaeology and political ecology.
To learn more, follow Shelby on Twitter: @ShelbyAnnMohrs
Bahram Naderil
Cultural Anthropology (PhD Candidate Fall 2021)
Regional Focus: Indonesia
BahramNaderil2017@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
I study the ways in which a Muslim 'waria' (transwomen) community in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, conceptualizes the notion of piety. I am specifically interested in exploring the aesthetics aspects of piety, the spectrum of embodying specific forms of gendered-aesthetics within a given time/place of religious devotion, and how the warias negotiate piety alongside social/political/economic challenges in their everyday lives. From my preliminary research, I learn that the warias' views on the sociology and theology of the body/soul relations, their views on sex/work, and their beliefs in the nature of human-god relations are highly fluid, are never universal, but are in direct relation to their individual perception/understanding of what piety and wariahood/transness mean.
Zachary Nissen (he/him)
PhD Archaeology Summer 2022
Regional Focus: Central America, Belize, The Maya
Zacharynissen2015@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Zach is an anthropological archaeologist who specializes in household studies of the pre-colonial Maya region of Central America. His dissertation research examines the everyday lives of urban commoner households to assess the relationship between urbanism and inequality during a period of environmental and sociopolitical stress. He has conducted research at the ancient Maya city of Aventura in the Corozal District of Belize as part of the Aventura Archaeology Project (AAP) since 2015. As a senior staff member, Zach has served as the Aventura Project's Ethics and Diversity Officer and helped to co-author the project's official statement on issues of archaeological ethics and diversity. In addition to archaeological research, he has co-organized annual community engagement events with Dr. Cynthia Robin and AAP staff members, as well as the Institute of Archaeology and Institute for Social and Cultural Research branches of the National Institute of Culture and History in Belize. Outside of archaeology and anthropology, Zach has a background in feminist and queer theory and has designed and taught courses as a Graduate Teaching Fellow in Gender and Sexuality Studies.
To learn more, follow Zach on Twitter: @zachnissen
Vanessa Watters Opalo
Cultural Anthropology (PhD Candidate 2016)
Regional Focus: West Africa, Ghana, Togo
VanessaOpalo2013@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Economy and value; Social welfare; Anthropology of religion; Ethics; Catholicism and Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity
Hafsa Oubou
Cultural Anthropology (PhD Candidate Spring 2018)
Regional Focus: Western Europe, Belgium
houbou@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
I examine how the intersection of education, religion, and race in public schools shapes religious and ethnic minorities in Belgium. After the 2016 attacks in Brussels, the teaching of Islam in public schools in francophone Belgium has become a point of contention, leading to a growing suspicion towards teachers of Islam and a heated debate among political parties to remove classes of religion from public schools. Using ethnographic methods from fieldwork in Brussels, I explore the controversies regarding teaching Islam in public education as a way to examine the question of Islam in Europe today.
Patrick Mbullo Owuor
PhD Biological Anthropology Summer 2022
Regional Focus: Kenya, East Africa
PatrickOwuor2021@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Patrick's dissertation, titled "Dams, Flows, and Displacements: Biosocial Impacts of the Proposed Thwake Multipurpose Dam in Makueni County, Kenya," seeks to explore how development induced displacement - specifically, as a result of the construction of a dam - influences the biosocial well-being of women and children. The overarching goal of this project is to understand the biological and social consequences of dam construction and associated activities on psychosocial, nutritional, and disease or physical health well-being among women and children in and around Makueni County, Kenya. Patrick argues that the experiences of dam construction, i.e., the disruption of existing social structures, institutions, and livelihoods, can potentially become physically embodied through poor physiology, growth, and development to impact maternal and child well-being.
To learn more, visit Patrick's Google Scholar
İdil Özkan
Linguistic Anthropology (PhD Candidate Summer 2020)
Research Location: Spain
MahmureOzkan2023@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content: Idil's research centers on how language ideologies provide a basis for imagining nation-state, identity, and citizenship in Spain's nationality offer to Sephardi Jews, five hundred years after the Spanish Inquisition. Combining ethnographic research and linguistic anthropological methods, her dissertation looks at how Spanish lawmakers, as well as Sephardic applicants to Spanish citizenship deploy notions of "language" and "culture" in attesting, negating and signaling national identity, lineage, and belonging.
Jennifer Porter-Lupu
Archaeology (PhD Candidate Winter 2019)
Regional Focus: US
JenniferPorter-Lupu2023@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Historical archaeology; 19th and 20th century urban US; patent and proprietary medicine; health and healing; embodiment; sex work; queer theory; multivocality; public and community archaeology; marginalized and underrepresented histories; space and landscape
Ashish Premkumar
Cultural Anthropology (PhD Candidate Spring 2021)
Regional Focus:
Research Content:
The focus of Ashish's research is on the issues of risk, stigma, and care associated with substance use during pregnancy. He has additional interests in the sociopolitical afterlives of biomedical studies, particularly randomized controlled trials.
Haley Ragsdale
Biological Anthropology (PhD Candidate Fall 2020)
Regional Focus: Cebu, Philippines
HaleyRagsdale2023@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Haley's research centers on the evolution of human pregnancy and the placenta. She is primarily interested in how mother, placenta, and offspring negotiate energetic investment, resource exchange, and immune tolerance in different environmental contexts. She applies a parent-offspring conflict framework to maternal-fetal communication and the regulation of metabolism in both mother and offspring across the life course(s). In addition, Haley uses an evolutionary, comparative lens to interrogate why humans suffer from pregnancy complications more than any other mammal.
To learn more, visit Haley's Website | Researchgate Profile | Twitter: @bioanth_rags
Daniela Maria Raillard (she/her)
Archaeology (PhD Candidate Spring 2021)
Regional Focus: South American Andes & Amazon
danielaraillard2024@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
For Daniela's dissertation project, she examines the ecologies of ancestors through an archaeology of Chachapoya mortuary landscapes and a community-engaged research design in northeastern Peru. In collaboration with local and descendant communities, she combines local land-based knowledge with aerial drone photogrammetry, and architecture survey to investigate how ancestral monuments mediated the relationship between people and the environment.
To learn more about her work, visit her website, her project website (www.mapachachapoya.com), or follow her project social media @MAPAchachapoya on Facebook.
Febi R. Ramadhan
Cultural Anthropology (Arryman Scholar 2018/PhD Candidate Spring 2022)
Regional Focus: Indonesia
FebiRamadhan2025@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
My dissertation research, "How to Do Things with God: The Making of Incommensurability between Same-Sex Sexualities and Islam in Indonesia," examines everyday practices of knowledge production on Islam and same-sex sexualities in Indonesia, particularly at the time of increased hypervisibility of the LGBTQ+ community and discourses on gender and sexual diversity in Indonesia. By combining ethnographic and archival research, I highlight how religious knowledge of same-sex sexualities in the Islamic tradition in Indonesia is intertwined with knowledge-making practices on sexuality that transgress time, space, and scale. My research project aims to contribute to conversations in anthropology, sexuality studies, religious- and Islamic studies, as well as Southeast Asian studies, especially relating to themes on illiberal religious subjects, knowledge production, and the proliferation of conservative movements in everyday settings.
Kaelin Rapport (he/him)
Medical Anthropology/MPH (PhD Candidate Summer 2020)
Research Location: Milwaukee (Millioke), US
KaelinRapport2022@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Kaelin's research explores the phenomenological experiences of penal supervision, the negative health consequences of involvement with the US criminal legal system for Black communities, and the dialectic relationship between racial capitalism and carceral practices/policy.
Key Terms: Health/Medicine; Inequality; Race/Ethnicity; Embodiment; Post/Colonialism; Biopolitics; Racial Capitalism; Surveillance; Carcerality; Temporality; Spatialization
Sari Ratri
Cultural Anthropology (Arryman Scholar 2017/PhD Candidate Fall 2020)
Regional Focus: East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia
SariRatri2015@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Sari’s reserach interest examines governmental intervention regarding child growth stunting and the knowledge-production embedded in that process, in East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. Her project intends to examine registration and record-keeping responsibilities assigned to local health workers apart from their already underpaid therapeutic work. Through this project, she is particularly interested to understand how dominant cultural ideas about health are conveyed when people talk about and reinterpret quantitative evidence collected from counting birth and death events. She receives funding from the Arrymans Fellows and Scholars, ISRSF Jakarta, as well as the Indonesian Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP), the Ministry of Finance, Indonesia.
Sophie Reilly (she/her)
Archaeology (PhD Candidate Spring 2021)
Regional Focus: Northeastern Andes, Montane Cloud Forest, Chachapoya
SophieReilly2024@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Sophie employs paleoethnobotanical techniques (the analysis of plant remains) to study ancient foodways. Her research specifically investigates the impacts of Inka and Spanish imperialism on food availability and access among Chachapoya communities in the Northeastern Andes from the 14th to 17th century. Her research investigates how communities and households developed strategies of food security to mitigate the impacts of imperial impositions while balancing food preferences. Sophie situates her research within current discussions of food security and food sovereignty and is exploring ways that archaeology can contribute to food justice movements in the present.
To learn more, follow Sophie on Twitter: @reillydigs
Amrina Rosyada (she/her)
Cultural Anthropology (Arryman Scholar 2019/Doctoral Student Fall 2020)
Regional Focus: Indonesia
amrina@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content: Amrina Rosyada is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University. Her current research interest concerns the intellectual history of anthropology in Indonesia. Using historical anthropology, she looks at how anthropologists study Indonesia throughout history: from the era of colonial scholars to native Indonesian anthropologists. She is also exploring the sociopolitical causes correlated to this disciplinary shift and its impacts, especially in how Indonesian societies are portrayed and studied. Her academic essays have been published in The Conversation Indonesia and Inside Indonesia.
Aaron Schoenfeldt (he, him)
Cultural Anthropology (PhD Candidate Fall 2021)
Regional Focus: Tulsa, Oklahoma (Creek Nation Territory)
AaronSchoenfeldt2024@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
My research examines the cultural and racial politics that manifest as civic leaders in Tulsa, Oklahoma attempt to transform their town from "Flyover Country" into a "World-Class City"
Emily Schwalbe (she/her)
Archaeology (PhD Candidate Winter 2020)
Regional Focus: South Carolina Lowcountry (Kusso, Yamassee, Santee Territories), United States
EmilySchwalbe2024@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
My current research explores the relationship between water and inequality, focusing on how people use and experience shared waterways differently by employing 17th-19th c South Carolina rice plantations as case studies. To this end, my dissertation project examines the idea of a plantation waterscape in the Charleston area by combining terrestrial archaeological sites with underwater archaeology to understand how plantation colonies functioned. In this study I conceptualize plantation waterways and their associated infrastructure as connectors rather than barriers to investigate the ways engineered landscapes facilitated and challenged production, surveillance, and communication on and between Lowcountry plantations.
To learn more, follow Emily on Twitter: @Salty_Archy | Instagram: @salty_archy
Anuranjan Sethi
Cultural Anthropology (Doctoral Student Fall 2019)
Regional Focus: India
AnuranjanSethi2024@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content: Anu is broadly interested in the conflicts at the intersections of law, technology, and governance of the Indian economy. His research focuses on the transmutations of global capital as it negotiates the dichotomy of 'formal' and 'informal' economies in the post-liberalization India. His current project is to understand the political economy dimensions of the Indian government's attempts to promote 'new money technologies' as a tool to tackle the problem of the black-money economy.
Atmaezer Hariara Simanjuntak
Cultural Anthropology (Doctoral Student Fall 2018)
Regional Focus: West Kalimantan, Indonesia
hariara.simanjuntak@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Ara's research tracks the legacies of colonial plantations in the Global South and how they emerge in the present both ideologically and materially. Combining ethnographic and archival research, he argues that deciphering the plantation logic remains critical to understand violent underdevelopment processes in postcolonial nation-states. This was made possible through the plantation's ability to create and manage differently valued environments, bodies, and social relations, which, in turn, sustain capitalist accumulation. Ara is also interested in the political economy of financial systems, multispecies relations, and emerging forms of hope and morality among indigenous laborers in West Kalimantan, Indonesia
To learn more, follow Ara on Twitter: @arasimanjuntakk
Mounica Sreesai (She/Her)
Cultural Anthropology (Doctoral Student Fall 2022)
Regional Focus: India
mounicasreesai@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content: Mounica's research interests lie in labor, gender, caste, capitalist relations, inequalities, politics, and social/political movements/mobilizations. She is currently interested in the subjectivities of working-class women participating in labor unions and movements consequential to the inherently gendered and unequal world of work. More specifically, how they reconstruct, navigate and negotiate these spaces. Her research focuses on their lived experiences of political participation and assertion, i.e., the conception, articulation, and performance of sisterhood networks, solidarities, and identities. Her project explores how they articulate (and the various forms this takes) work, labor, and struggle, and through the process, interrogate and transform them in the intertwined spaces of unions and movements, workplaces, and intimate-familial spheres. She probes how their presence and work alter the characteristics and culture of unions. Her attempt is to situate them in the intersection of labor and feminist studies by examining the emancipatory possibilities they see for themselves as women and as workers and how their membership in unions equips them to conceive of and articulate sociopolitical change.
Craig Stevens (he/him)
Archaeology (Doctoral Student Fall 2020)
Regional Focus: Liberia, London
craigstevens2025@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Transcultural Black identity formation in the Back-to-Africa movement; African and African Diasporic solidarity via expressive and material cultures.
Stephen Sullivan (he/him)
Cultural Anthropology (PhD Candidate Summer 2019)
Regional Focus: Brooklyn, New York (Lenapehoking)
StephenSullivan2016@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
What does gentrification sound like? My research examines the relationship between sound and politics in the context of rapid political economic and social change. Its methodology bridges traditional forms of ethnography like participant observation and interviews with soundscape analysis and archival work. The project calls attention to how narrow framings of noise in popular media and among policy makers miss the rich complexities of urban sound as a social phenomenon. Amid ongoing displacement, undemocratic housing and land policies, and heightened forms of policing, noise is a tactic of anti-gentrification dissent among Latinx residents.
To learn more, follow Stephen on Twitter: @sfsulls
Keegan Terek (he/him)
Linguistic Anthropology (PhD Candidate Summer 2019)
Regional Focus: Amman, Jordan
KeeganTerek2016@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Keegan's dissertation research examines contemporary Arabic-language discourse around non-normative gender and sexuality - particularly as it shapes and is deployed in humanitarian work related to forced migration - through ethnographic engagement with LGBTQ refugees and activists in Amman, Jordan.
Elijiah Watson
Biological Anthropology (Doctoral Student Fall 2020)
Regional Focus:
elijahwatson2025@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Elijah's research broadly focuses on maternal and child health, with a particular interest in maternal stress, child growth and development, infant feeding, and food and water insecurity.
Tabor Whitney (she/her)
Biological Anthropology (PhD Candidate Spring 2021)
Regional Focus: Veracruz, Mexico (Huasteco, Otomí, Totonaca, and the Olmec territories)
TaborWhitney2025@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
My research assesses habitat degradation and its impact on the overall health and wellbeing of endangered non-human primates. Specifically, I am interested in how shifts in the quality of the environment are reflected in hosts’ gut microbiomes and inflammation responses. I plan to expand the use of the gut microbiome as a conservationist tool.
To learn more, visit Tabor's Google Scholar | Twitter: @tabor_whitney
Jin Xiong (Portia)
Cultural Anthropology (Doctoral Student Fall 2018)
Regional Focus: China
JinXiong2023@u.northwestern.edu
Research Content:
Jin Xiong (aka Portia) is a student of the PhD/JD joint program at Northwestern University. As a sociocultural anthropologist, she has broad interest in areas including im/mobilities, family, childhood, development, gender, sexuality, feminism, medical anthropology and anthropology of law. Specifically, her doctoral project looks at how im/mobilities shape and reshape rising China's childhood and family through the lens of the lived experiences of rural Liushou Ertong (Left-behind Children) in central China, and how global legal discourses such as human rights and children's rights unfold in poorly resourced rural communities. For her, anthropology and law are Yin and Yang (united opposites) in the sense that the former pushes people to explore the complexities of human life while the latter requires the art of "less is more".