Spotlight Spring 2026

Alumni Spotlight Spring 2026

Renee Kuban — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 16:30:41 +0000

Alumni Spotlight Spring 2026 Renee Kuban Thu, 03/12/2026 - 10:30

Julie Thomas (Anthropology, PhD 2025)

I am an archaeologist and cultural resource specialist for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) – Northwest District (NWD) in Colorado. The NWD’s vast and beautiful landscape – 3.5 million acres of public lands – contains phenomenal fossil beds as well as evidence of over 8,000 years of human habitation, ranging from rock art to wickiups, all preserved in place. As a BLM archaeologist and site steward, I consult with Tribal and State Historic Preservation Officers, manage cultural resource and GIS databases, generate reports, and advocate for the protection of ancestral and cultural legacies located on public lands in compliance with the law.

Off

Traditional

White

Graduate Student Spotlight Spring 2026

Renee Kuban — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 16:24:17 +0000

Graduate Student Spotlight Spring 2026 Renee Kuban Thu, 03/12/2026 - 10:24

Anna Wynfield (Cultural Anthropology, PhD Candidate)

Anna’s research focuses on reproduction, medical anthropology, and prenatal care in the U.S. She is currently writing her dissertation based on multi-year ethnographic research with pregnant people and certified nurse-midwives at hospital-based clinics. Her work engages theoretical perspectives from feminist anthropology and political economy, analyzing how late-stage capitalist contexts and compounding crises in reproductive healthcare demand increasing forms of flexible labor from both healthcare providers and pregnant people. In documenting how people attempt to reconcile historical injustices through feminist practices today, her dissertation highlights the everyday labor sustaining reproduction and prenatal care in the U.S.

Off

Traditional

White

Faculty Spotlight Spring 2026

Renee Kuban — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 16:20:39 +0000

Faculty Spotlight Spring 2026 Renee Kuban Thu, 03/12/2026 - 10:20

Sharon DeWitte (Biological Anthropology)

Dr. DeWitte is a biological anthropologist with expertise in paleodemography, paleoepidemiology, and bioarchaeology. Her primary research interest is biosocial variation in health in past populations, particularly how factors such as sex, gender, socioeconomic status, migration, developmental stress, and diet affected risks of disease and mortality, how disease shapes population dynamics, and how host and environmental factors affect disease patterns. Using data from human skeletal remains, she examines medieval mortality crises (famine and plague) in European contexts, including the mortality patterns, the demographic and health consequences, and the context of the emergence of the 14th-century plague pandemic commonly referred to as the Black Death. Using archival evidence, she examines health transitions in the context of industrialization and urbanization in historical New York State.

Off

Traditional

White

Undergraduate Spotlight Spring 2026

Renee Kuban — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 16:17:32 +0000

Undergraduate Spotlight Spring 2026 Renee Kuban Thu, 03/12/2026 - 10:17

Abigail Verneuille (Anthropology, BA in Progress)

Abigail Verneuille is a senior majoring in Anthropology with a minor in Women and Gender Studies and a certificate in GIS. Her undergraduate thesis work aims to predict past streamflow heights of the Rio Grande River to identify years of agricultural instability. Through a modeling process, Abigail seeks to identify why Tewa speaking peoples migrated throughout the Velarde Valley throughout the Puebloan Classic Period by assessing potential flood years and subsequent transitions in agricultural techniques. She hopes to connect this work with Tewa petroglyphs of the Avanyu, or horned water serpent, and combine religious and climatological research in northern New Mexico!

Off

Traditional

White