Alumni testimonials

NAU’s Department of Anthropology alumni testimonials

Stay connected to Northern Arizona University and the Department of Anthropology by signing up for our alumni newsletter. We also encourage you to share where life has taken you since your time at the university by emailing us your success stories. See what some of our alumni have to say about our program and the success they found with their anthropology degrees.

David “Kofi” Mensah (2020)

MA Socio-Cultural Anthropology

I joined the anthropology department as an international graduate student from Ghana, West Africa, where I obtained my bachelor’s in cultural anthropology at the University of Cape Coast. The anthropology program has positively impacted my academic journey and development. The faculty, especially Drs. Michelle Parsons, Emery Eaves, Fritz Lampe, and my cohorts (2019 – 2021) especially Erik, Jordi, and Gabi were very supportive. Even in our lockdown days during the COVID-19 pandemic, we still find time to connect. The department has become like a home to me as I am doing my Ph.D. at NAU with the Interdisciplinary Health program.”

Mercedes C. Douglass (2012)

“Participatory Governance in a Mainlander Community in Roatán, Honduras: Structuring Partnership Discourse Through Performance”) has recently begun her PhD studies in linguistic anthropology at UCLA.

Emily Altimare (2007)

MA Applied Socio-Cultural Anthropology

“The anthropology program thoroughly prepared me for my current PhD program and I am very thankful for the combination of rigor and practicality that characterize the department. Attending NAU for my master’s degree in anthropology was one of the wisest choices that I have made in my academic career to date.”

Stephen R. Anderson (2007)

MA Applied Archaeology

“I can say without a doubt that my experiences at NAU prepared me for my current job as an archaeology project manager in the CRM field. I felt that they really wanted each of us to succeed and they were always there to lend assistance in any way necessary. In my opinion, it was a tough graduate school, but I wouldn’t change a thing about it. I could not have picked a better program.”

Andy Bessler (1999)

MA Applied Socio-cultural Anthropology

“I graduated in 1999 and completed the applied cultural internship track focusing on how activism on tribal lands is impacted by cultural, social, and political boundaries. During my internship, I helped Navajo community members set up a non-profit corporation that worked on land restoration and traditional farming. My work at NAU prepared me to look at problems holistically and not through just one lens.”

Lee Rains Clauss (2001)

MA Applied Archaeology

“The Applied Archaeology Graduate Program at NAU prepared me for the real work of community-based archaeology and indigenous cultural resource management.  Due to my education and experiences at NAU, I discovered a way to conduct an especially elusive, but extremely rewarding, form of archaeology: one that is both scientifically rigorous and culturally-appropriate, and thus, ultimately, mutually beneficial.”

Anna Corwin (2007)

MA Thesis Linguistic Anthropology

“Beyond He and She: The Linguistic Construction of Gender Among Genderqueer Individuals” is finishing her PhD in linguistic anthropology at UCLA.

“I am currently pursuing a PhD in linguistic anthropology at UCLA. The fact that I am pursing a PhD in this subject is a testament of the encouragement, enthusiasm, and preparation provided to me by the anthropology department and my NAU adviser, Jim Wilce. The theoretical, methodological, and analytical background in linguistic anthropology that I received at NAU has well prepared me to pursue a PhD in this field.

Christopher Engleke (2005)

“Talking Togetherness : The Discursive Construction of Sociocentricity in and Around the Pilgrimage to Manakamana, Nepal”) is finishing his PhD in linguistic anthropology at UCLA.

Kaylene Holvenstot (2005)

“Nez Perce Language Revitalization” worked for several years with the Serrano Language Revitalization Project and recently began her PhD in linguistic anthropology at UCLA.

Duane C. Hubbard (2000)

MA Archaeology Thesis Track

“NAU gave me the academic foundation necessary to work in the National Park Service as a park archaeologist and resource manager. The NAU anthropology department has a long history of properly preparing students for careers through formal internship programs. The amount of former graduates in federal service is a testimony in itself to the success of the anthropology program.”

Nathanael Krancus (2009)

“Criticisms, Agency, and Subjectivity Among Bolivian Pentecostals” is currently research coordinator, data manager, and analyst at the Social Development Research Group (SDRG) at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Ora V. Marek-Martinez ( 2003)

MA Applied Archaeology Track

“It wasn’t until I was enrolled at another university that I realized the education and training I received at NAU’s Department of Anthropology was unique. The practical training I received, for example, how to create a successful resume and CV, how to effectively address and present my research to audiences, and how to secure funding for my research, has proven to be invaluable.”

Eleanor McLellan-Lemal (1994)

MA Applied Socio-cultural Anthropology

“While I worked on my degree, I had the opportunity to begin applying many of the qualitative, quantitative, and project management research skills acquired in my anthropology course work to my role as an ethnographer with the Flagstaff Multicultural AIDS Prevent Project.

I continue to be involved in HIV/AIDS prevention research and currently work for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, GA as a Behavioral Scientist in the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention. The theoretical, methodological, and analytical foundation I received in the applied anthropology at NAU continues to influence how and why I conduct research.”

Fredy R. Rodriguez (2007)

MA Applied Socio-cultural Anthropology

“Never before at a department in an American institution did I feel such as sense of community among professors and students and such sense of support and guidance. I arrived at the anthropology department at NAU with a vague set of ideas about my future in anthropology and left with an immense set of tools which have extensively prepared me for my experience as a PhD student at Michigan State University.

As a graduate of the MA program I have notably improved in areas such as conference attendance, public presentations, writing style, and research—all attributes which I gained from the professional and academic guidance I obtained from different professors at NAU’s anthropology department.”

Muhammad Nabil Zuberi (2012)

“Legitimating the ‘Battle’: ‘Illegality,’ Authenticity, and Language Ideologies in the Arizona Immigration Debate” has recently started his PhD in anthropology at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.