Tiffany Alvarez Field of study: Evolutionary Anthropology Advisor: Dr. Edward Hagen Email:Tiffany.Alvarez@wsu.edu I am a bio-cultural anthropologist interested in female reproduction, evolutionary models of human drug use, and cultural and evolutionary perspectives of health. I focus on human female life-history allocation challenges to reproduction in the face of acculturation pressures, toxin exposure (specifically tobacco), and/or illness. My PhD research integrates evolutionary biological theory with cultural methods to examine how biological, reproductive, and socio-cultural factors influence tobacco use patterns among Latin American migrants and Indigenous women living in a tobacco-producing region of NW Argentina. This work highlights the bidirectional relationship between culture and biology and seeks to answer nuanced questions on the effects culture and acculturative processes have on tobacco use patterns, reproductive behaviors, and reproductive decision-making. Areas of concentration: Life History Theory, Evolutionary Medicine, Reproductive Ecology/Toxicology, Ecological Immunity, Maternal Health, Indigenous Health, Latin America.
	Tyler Baley Field of study: MA, Archaeology Advisor: Dr. Colin Grier Email: tyler.baley@wsu.edu I am a digital archaeologist helping others to integrate remote sensing techniques and newer technologies into their workflows in order to encourage the use of less invasive & destructive archaeological practices. I earned my BA in Anthropology from Washington State University and have certifications in GIS and Drone survey. I am currently pursuing an MA in Archaeology w/ Thesis under the guidance of Dr. Colin Grier. I currently work with Dr. Colin Grier on projects that involve indigenous peoples from the pacific northwest out of his lab on the Washington State University Vancouver campus. Much of my work involves sensitive issues that pertain to personal and cultural autonomy, land and material proprietorship, and assisting in the collection of evidence to support the legal remedies necessary to resolve these issues. I study Power and Inequality; I look at how power structures are formed and then institutionalized at the small and complex societal level. I am keenly interested in how power is both used and misused, and how those factors contribute to material decay and cultural death. I have a background in evolutionary psychology and classical history, which I have integrated into my theoretical approach.
	Hawi Aberra Bekele Field of study: MA Cultural Anthropology Advisor: Dr. Marsha Quinlan Email:hawi.bekele@wsu.edu I am a Masters student in the cultural anthropology stream, working with Dr. Marsha Quinlan. My research interest focuses mainly on Indigenous culture, gender, and peace. For my Masters thesis, I will look into the indigenous notion of peace, gender roles, and conflict resolution among the Oromo people in Ethiopia. This research aims to unravel the complex web of cultural, social, and historical factors that shape the Oromo people's perspectives on these vital subjects.
	Temechegn G. Bira Field of Study: Ph.D. Cultural Anthropology Advisor: Dr. Barry S. Hewlett Email:temechegn.bira@wsu.edu I am a doctoral student in Cultural Anthropology working with Dr. Barry Hewlett. I obtained MSc in Cultural Anthropology and Development Studies from KU Leuven, Belgium in 2019. My thesis focused on dispossession and human insecurity caused by development intervention in Nyangatom, Southwestern Ethiopia. I also obtained MA in Social Anthropology from Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia and Bachelor Degree in History from Jimma University in 2010 and 2007 respectively. For my dissertation, I propose to study the social learning of Pastoralist and Hunter-Gatherer children in Southwestern Ethiopia, by focusing om Mursi and Kwegu ethnic groups respectively.
	Darcy Bird Field of study: Ph.D. Archaeology Advisor: Dr. Tim Kohler Email: darcy.bird@wsu.edu I am a doctoral student in archaeology working with Dr. Tim Kohler. My main research interests include human adaptive strategies to changing environments, modeling and computational archaeology, paleodemography, human ecology, social differentiation, and anthropological big data. I received an M.S. in Archaeology and Cultural Resource Management at Utah State University in 2019. My thesis addressed the population density/stability tradeoff between agriculturalist and hunter-gatherer populations using radiocarbon dates as representative of population with all available radiocarbon data in the United States and Canada. For my dissertation, I propose to study the indirect relationship between climate change and human populations and societies by quantifying environmental and social factors that may mediate or exacerbate the effect of the changing climate on people.
	Valda Black Field of study: Ph.D. Archaeology Advisor: Dr. Erin Thornton Email: valda.black@wsu.edu I am a PhD student working with Dr. Erin Thornton in the Stable Isotope Lab. I obtained my Bachelor and Masters degrees in Anthropology at CUNY Hunter College in New York. My MA thesis focused on using 3D geometric morphometric techniques to analyze intentional cranial modification heterogeneity and how it might relate to social identity in prehistoric Andean Peru. My dissertation work will continue in this region by incorporating skeletal analysis, ancient DNA, and stable isotope techniques to explore migration, lineage, and reformulation of identity.
	James Brown Field of study: Ph.D. Archaeology Advisor: Dr. Colin Grier Email: james.w.brown@wsu.edu I am an archaeology Ph.D. graduate student working with Dr. Grier. My dissertation research is on the Northwest Coast of North America focusing on identifying plankhouse villages in the San Juan Islands of Washington using ground-penetrating radar, percussion coring, and radiocarbon dating. I completed my Bachelors and Masters degrees at Central Washington University. During my Bachelors, I took part in a Science Honors Research Project that developed the use of calcined bone in radiocarbon dating for North America. My Masters was on validating thermoluminescence dating on the Northwest Coast through comparison with radiocarbon dating of charcoal and calcined bone. Academic and CRM fieldwork I have been part of has occurred in Washington State on both the Coast and Plateau. My research interests include household archaeology, lithic technology, radiocarbon and luminescence dating, and more general interest in the culture change of the Northwest Coast and Columbia Plateau.
	Cameron Blumhardt Field of study: Archaeology Advisor: Dr. Colin Grier Email: cameron.blumhardt@wsu.edu I am a first year MA student working for Dr. Grier. My focus is in photogrammetry, GIS, and other software applications relevant to archaeology. I specifically plan to center my research on ethical approaches in conducting fieldwork and on utilizing technology to further our ability to collectively learn about the past in ways that satisfy and respect all stakeholders. I received my BS in Archaeology with a minor in Geology from Appalachian State University in 2021. I completed an undergraduate thesis while at the university, focusing on ethical approaches to curating virtual museums that are centered on small-scale archaeology sites. My research provided me with experience in curation ethics and in technology used to create platforms for public accessibility to archaeology.
	Laura Brumbaugh Field of study: MA Archaeology Advisor: Dr. Andrew Duff Email: laura.brumbaugh@wsu.edu I am a first year MA student, and my research interests are in the archaeology of the United States Southwest. Specifically, I am interested in studying the factors influencing Ancestral Puebloan community formation during the transition between the Pueblo I and Pueblo II time periods in southwestern Colorado. I have previously engaged in some preliminary research into the impact of Pueblo I trading patterns on Pueblo II great house community formation in the Mesa Verde region. I earned my BS in Biology at Gettysburg College in 2017, and have participated in archaeological projects in northeastern Arizona, Pennsylvania, France, southwestern Colorado, and southeastern Utah.
	Beatrice Caffe Field of study: MA Evolutionary Anthropology Advisor: Dr. Courtney Meehan Email:beatrice.caffe@wsu.edu I am a Master’s student working with Dr. Courtney Meehan. My Master’s research will investigate the social, environmental and behavioral correlates of human milk immune factors. I earned my BA in Anthropology at Humboldt State University. My broader interests include reproductive health and maternal-infant microbiomes.
	Kanupriya Dhawan Field of study: Ph.D. Cultural Anthropology Advisor: Dr. Clare Wilkinson Email: kanupriya.dhawan@wsu.edu I am a PhD student in Cultural Anthropology and my research interests lie at the intersections of sartorial practices, gender, nationalism and modernity. Through my research I aim to create a hermeneutic of Indian woman’s social life and identity through sartorial practices. My M.Phil. thesis surveyed the importance of ocular experiences in the identity-formation process. Building on my experience, I aim to explore sartorial practices in India that generate a society’s code and habits of ‘seeing and being seen’. Sartorial practices can be seen as ‘bodylores’ through which the body is culturally managed and supervised. In my research I aim to understand how narratives of law, religion and media have played a significant role in imposing ‘ideas of decorum’ on women’s clothing in India. Areas of concentration: Anthropology of dress, South Asian Studies, Visual Cultures, Gender studies, Postcolonial theory. Teaching Experience: In addition to my research pursuits, I worked as an Instructor of English literature and Art History in India and worked as a Teaching Assistant at University of Pennsylvania for Hindi language and Culture.
	Evelien Deelen Field of study: Ph.D. Cultural Anthropology Advisor: Dr. Marsha Quinlan Email: evelien.deelen@wsu.edu I am a cultural anthropology PhD student working with Dr. Marsha Quinlan and Dr. Robert Quinlan. I received my BA and MA (Res) in archaeology from Leiden University in the Netherlands. For my MA thesis I studied the construction of indigeneity in relation to traditional dress in contemporary Mexican society, which relates to my interest in Latin America, identity, and cultural survival. My PhD research incorporates my interests from a different perspective: human-animal relation studies, ethnobiology, and multispecies ethnography. I am particularly interested in human-horse entanglements, traditional equestrian knowledge, and concepts and constructs of wild and tame. My dissertation research centers on the traditional horse culture of the Colombian Llanos region in relation to modernization and the oil industry. I am also very interested in Mustang adoption and Bronc riding in the United States and aim to incorporate a cross-cultural perspective in my research.
	Michael Gaffney Field of study: MA Evolutionary Anthropology Advisor: Dr. Ed Hagen Email:michael.gaffney2@wsu.edu I am an MA student primarily interested in costly signaling and symptoms in humans. My research focuses mainly on depression; however, I am also interested in other proposed costly signals of need and what they might share. Previously, my research involved nocebo responses and primate ranging patterns at UC Santa Barbara, where I received my BA.
	Chancy Gatlin Anderson Field of study:PhD Cultural Anthropology Advisor: Dr. Clare Wilkinson Email: Chancy.gatlin@wsu.edu I am a first-year PhD student working with Dr. Clare Wilkinson. Research Experience: I received my Master of Arts degree in Anthropology at Georgia State University in 2014 where I worked with the Atlanta Lolita and Japanese Street Fashion Community. I studied their fashion, use of photography, and their use of social media to analyze how Lolitas manage their impressions both online and in person. I received my Bachelor of Science degree in Anthropology at Kennesaw State University in 2012 where I studied Hare Krishna community outreach practices and Belizean archaeology. For my doctoral research, I plan to study the influx of Japanese plus-size designers and brands, plus-size representation in Japanese media, and what these changes mean for plus-sized Japanese women today. Teaching Experience: In addition to my research pursuits, I worked as an Instructor of Anthropology at Georgia State University for the Spring 2015-Summer 2017 semesters
	Braidynn Harchis Field of study: Ph.D. Cultural Anthropology Advisor: Dr. Julia Cassaniti Email:braidynn.harchis@wsu.edu I am a second year masters student working with Julia Cassaniti in the cultural anthropology stream, studying Theravada Buddhism and Gender in Thailand. My research interests include, gender and sexuality, Buddhism, religion, Thailand, Thai language, mindfulness, meditation, the Self, identity, and queer and feminist theory.
	Cynthiann Heckelsmiller Field of study: Ph.D. Cultural Anthropology Advisor: Dr. Marsha Quinlan Email: c.heckelsmiller@wsu.edu I am a PhD student in Cultural Anthropology, studying ethnobotany with Marsha Quinlan. I am interested in how indigenous people adapt to modern development changes, especially related to plant use and knowledge. I completed my MS in Ethnobotany at the University of Kent, Canterbury, UK, where my fieldwork and dissertation focused on plant food use and ethnic identity as subsistence strategies change for Maasai in NE Tanzania. My past fieldwork also includes looking at TEK, land rights, and conservation with the Taku River Tlingit First Nation in Northern British Columbia. My PhD thesis will expand on the connections between subsistence, cultural identity and transmission in East Africa. Outside of anthropology, I am still a field botanist at heart, and can be found somewhere in the bush with a hand lens and my research assistant/dog.
	Kate Hebert Field of Study: MA, Cultural Anthropology Advisor: Dr. Marsha Quinlan Email: kate.hebert@wsu.edu I am a first year MA student with research interests in medicinal ethnobotany in fragile, biodiverse ecosystems, combining my interests in biochemistry and cultural anthropology throughout my studies. I will utilize anthropology to discover how different plants are used, communicated about, and manipulated for medicinal purposes. Additionally, I will employ my skills in biochemistry to investigate the medicinal properties of plant specimens. I graduate from Loyola University Chicago in 2021 with a BS in anthropology and a BS in biochemistry. I completed an undergraduate thesis examining the mass spectrometry of microplastic interactions with emerging contaminants in wastewater. My research allowed me to understand mass spectrometry, particularly the GC/MS, which I plan on integrating into my research. When I am not studying, I can be found exploring the wildernesses both near and far.
	Elliot Helmer Field of study: Ph.D. Archaeology Advisor: Dr. Shannon Tushingham Email: elliot.helmer@wsu.edu I am a PhD student specializing in the spatial analysis and the archaeology of the southern Northwest Coast. My research interests include human-landscape relationships, resource use, practice theory, identity, and cultural heritage. My M.A. thesis at WSU investigated the phenomena of persistent places in southern Oregon using regional-scale settlement pattern analysis in GIS.
	Madison Honig Field of Study: Evolutionary Anthropology Advisor: Dr. Aaron Blackwell Email: madison.honig@wsu.edu I am a first year M.A. student broadly interested in evolutionary medicine, infectious disease, and life history theory. I am particularly interested in how immune activity related to infectious disease exposure shapes female reproductive health. I received my B.Sc from the University of Toronto where I studied Biology and Evolutionary Anthropology. My previous research involved disease modelling in Daphnia in the Krkosek Lab and 3D surface scanning of Australopithecus anamensis casts under the supervision of Dr. Bence Viola. I propose to investigate energetic trade-offs in horticulturalist groups related to immune investment from infectious disease pressure and how this affects fertility.
	Emily Kinney Field of study: MA Archaeology Advisor: Dr. Erin Thornton Email: emily.g.kinney@wsu.edu I am a MA candidate in the field of archaeology, working with Dr. Erin Thornton. My research interests include zooarchaeology, stable isotope analysis, political economy, and human-environment interactions in Mesoamerica and the Andes. For my master’s thesis, I will be studying the economy and environment of Aventura, a Terminal Classic Maya site in Belize, through the lens of zooarchaeology and stable isotope analysis. I received my BA in Archaeological Studies from the University of Wisconsin- La Crosse in May 2021. My undergraduate thesis used in-depth faunal analyses to compare the animal economies of Kizsombor-Uj-Elet, Hungary, and Pecica Santul-Mare, Romania, two sites occupied by the Maros culture during the European Bronze Age.
	Tiffany Kite Field of Study: MA Archaeology Advisor: Dr.Shannon Tushingham Email: tiffany.kite@wsu.edu I am a first-year master's student in archaeology studying with Dr. Shannon Tushingham. I earned my bachelor's degree at Washington State University in Anthropology with minors in History, Native American Studies, Environmental Science, and Geospatial Analysis. I participated in SURCA during my undergrad earning a Novice Award for our work with identifying human skeletal remains. My research now is focused on starch grain analysis.
	Athar Khan Field of study: Cultural Anthropology Advisor: Dr. Rob Quinlan Email: athar.khan@wsu.edu I am a PhD Student with a research interest in application of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) in climate change mitigation and adaptation in Himalaya, Karakoram and Hindu-Kush (HKH) Mountain Ranges. A part of his research is to find how climate change adaptation policies are viewed in the local discourses and what material consequences that has in practice. I have received M.Sc. degree in Forestry from Pakistan Forest Institute Peshawar and M.Sc. in Carbon Management from University of Central Lancashire UK. I worked as a director of the Central Karakorum National Park (CKNP) in Pakistan, participatory forestry expert and advisor for FAO in Afghanistan and Biodiversity Specialist with IUCN Pakistan.
	Haden Kingrey Field of study: Ph.D. Archaeology Advisor: Dr. John Blong Email:haden.kingrey@wsu.edu I am a PhD student working with Dr. John Blong in the Environmental Archaeology Research Lab. Before attending WSU, I received my bachelor's degree in anthropology and history from the University of Oregon in 2019, and I received my master's degree in anthropology from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2022. For my dissertation, I am utilizing various residue analyses of stone tools and coprolites to identify the ancient diets and foraging behaviors of early Holocene people from the Great Basin and the Southern Columbia Plateau. My CRM experience has included working for the Museum of Natural and Cultural History in Oregon and for SWCA Environmental Consultants and the Desert Research Institute in Nevada.
	Sreenidhi Krishnan Field of study: Ph.D. Cultural Anthropology Advisor: Dr. Clare M. Wilkinson Email: sreenidhi.krishnan@wsu.edu I am currently a PhD student in Cultural Anthropology and my research interests include looking at the production and significance of material culture in everyday life, understanding the capacity of religious practices in deciding the gender dynamics within media and industry, the content produced and its subsequent role in shaping production processes and workplace culture. Areas that specifically interest me are creative direction, art, costuming and design within the Hindi television industry. Areas of concentration: Anthropology of media, Visual culture, Indian Television, Production Cultures, Postcolonial Theory.
	Hannah MacIntyre Field of Study: Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology Advisor: Dr. Clare Wilkinson Email: Hannah.macintyre@wsu.edu I am a doctoral candidate in cultural anthropology working with Dr. Clare Wilkinson. My research interests lie primarily in the examination of performativity, media consumption, and the material impacts of public institutions and displays in shaping contemporary human experience. My dissertation research focuses on the disentanglement of the relationship between the diasporic Indian community, media and material consumption, and the public cultural displays that contextualize the greater Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.
	Brandon McIntosh Field of Study: Ph.D. Archaeology Advisor: Dr. Erin Thornton Email: brandon.m.mcintosh@wsu.edu My research interests include the prehistoric cultures of the Great Basin, U.S. Southwest, and Mesoamerica, stable isotope ecology, zooarchaeology, paleoenvironmental reconstruction and conservation biology. My research includes stable isotope analysis in connection to the faunal component of the archaeological record for the purpose of understanding prehistoric relationships between humans and their animal neighbors, and the archaeology of environmental change. I seek to understand cultural and biological change through evolutionary and niche construction theory. My Master’s thesis research was directed toward understanding turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) domestication, and the exploitation of freshwater fish species as strategies for resilience in subsistence and market trade at the Postclassic site of Isla Cilvituk (Campeche, Mexico). My dissertation research combines zooarchaeological, isotopic and ancient DNA analyses to explore turkey use and domestication in the Jornada, Mimbres and Casas Grandes regions of the U.S. Southwest and northern Mexico.
	Tara McLaughlin Field of Study: Archaeology Advisor: Shannon Tushingham Email: tara.mclaughlin1@wsu.edu I am a first year Graduate student. I am a Tribal Member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and I currently work as an archaeologist for the Kalispel Tribe of Indians. My interest lies in indigenous archaeology, complex hunter-gatherer societies, lithics, and zooarchaeology. Previously, I obtained my Bachelor of Science degree from Oregon State University in Anthropology. Currently, I manage the collections housed by the Kalispel Tribe of Indians and work with researchers who are interested in collaborating and expanding knowledge from these collections. My primary goal is to help bridge the gap between cultural resource management and academia, with the intent of publishing research to open source platforms.
	Daniel McCloskey Field of study: Cultural Anthropology Advisor: Dr. Jeanette Mageo Email: daniel.mccloskey@wsu.edu I am a first year M.A. student who is interested in a wide range of topics regarding ideas of self and identity. Specifically, I am interested in how socially shared and culturally specific ideologies effect and inform our constructions of ourselves. As an undergraduate at the University of Connecticut, I specifically focused my research on ideologies of gender and masculinity. As a graduate student I would like to continue with inquiries about gender as well as build upon that work by investigating other forms of identity.
	Lori Phillips Field of study: Archaeology Advisor: Dr. Erin Thornton Email: lori.phillips@wsu.edu I am currently an archaeology Ph.D. student working with Dr. Erin Thornton. My research interests include stable isotope analysis, zooarchaeology, and the ancient Maya. Before coming to WSU, I worked on archaeological projects in both South Africa and Central America, but my current research is based in the Maya region. My M.A. thesis focused on turkey husbandry at the Postclassic site of Mayapán (Yucatan, Mexico) through integrated zooarchaeological and isotopic analyses. My dissertation research uses stable isotope (carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur) and zooarchaeological analyses of faunal assemblages from the Belize River watershed to explore ancient Maya aquatic resource use, specifically how use may have changed during periods of environmental and population stress.
	Jenna Schmidt Field of study: Ph.D. Cultural Anthropology Advisor: Dr. Courtney Meehan Email:jenna.schmidt@wsu.edu I am a cultural anthropology student working with Dr. Courtney Meehan in the Biocultural anthropology lab. I am interested in the microbiome of human breast milk, with a specific interest in how the body metabolizes cannabis through breast milk. I obtained my bachelor's degree from Washington State University in Human Biology. As an undergraduate student I conducted research describing women’s decision-making process and the factors they considered for using cannabis while breastfeeding and assessed whether more breastfeeding women used cannabis for medical or recreational purposes. I was a research assistant to 4 different research projects at the university. For my thesis I plan to continue investigating how the body metabolizes cannabis.
	Kate Shantry Field of Study: PhD Archaeology Advisor: Dr. Colin Grier Email: kate.shantry@wsu.edu I am currently an archaeology PhD student with a BA from the University of Washington and an MA from Western Washington University. My dissertation topic relates to the movement of people and places on the dynamic shoreline landscape of southern Puget Sound, in the traditional territory of the Puyallup, Muckleshoot, and Snoqualmie people. I am building a contextual model that uses archaeology, language, oral history, landscape and settlement pattern theory to understand how people responded to a cataclysmic mudflow (lahar) event from Mount Rainier [Tahoma] ca. 5,500 years ago. My other interests include traditional food studies, experimental archaeology, geoarchaeology, protection of cultural resources, tribal sovereignty, history, and mentoring archaeology students, among other subjects.
	Kimberly Sheets Field of study: MA Archaeology Advisor: Andrew Duff Email: kimberly.sheets@wsu.edu I am a MA student in archaeology with a BA from the University of Arizona. My thesis research focuses on using stable isotopes (strontium) to source bighorn sheep, a nonlocal species present in the Homol’ovi Settlement Cluster, Northeast Arizona (c. 1260-1400). I hope to use what I learn to source other nonlocal fauna within the Cluster’s assemblages to better understand landscape use and resource procurement by Ancestral Hopi peoples.
	Arpita Sinha Field of study: Ph.D. Cultural Anthropology Advisor: Dr. Clare Wilkinson Email:arpita.sinha@wsu.edu I am a PhD student in Cultural Anthropology and my research interests lie at the intersections of issues of gender and labour relations, health and work, and women's self-image. To understand and analyse these issues within a particular industrial context, in my thesis I look at the contemporary fashion industry in India, with primary focus on the female fashion models who work there. Even though fashion models are the most visible labourers in the industry, they have rarely been accounted for in the discourse of fashion in India, therefore pushing them to the margins of the industry. The current work is aimed at intervening and redressing this issue. Some of the areas that I wish to explore in my work are how the Indian fashion industry and the profession of modelling have changed in the last two decades, how models become an ideological and political conduit in the negotiations between tradition and modernity in India’s postcolonial, globalized cultural context to create the image of the modern Indian woman, and how the profession of modelling is changing with the advent of the digital, arguably giving a section of the working models some agency. Being a former fashion model myself, my methodology includes a combination of autoethnography, case studies, and interviews.
	Caroline Smith Field of study: Ph.D. Evolutionary anthropology Advisor: Dr. Ed Hagen Email: caroline.smith@wsu.edu I am a PhD Candidate with broad interest in interpersonal cooperation and conflict, signals of need, and women's mental health and wellbeing. I use approaches from both evolutionary medicine and biocultural anthropology to study how interpersonal conflict and experiences of adversity are related to depression and health. I am particularly interested in the ecological and evolutionary foundations of the sex bias in depression which puts women at about twice the risk of a depressive episode as men. Some of the foundational questions that drive my work include: How do people communicate their needs to others? How do people determine whether they should believe information about others' needs? How do people resolve disputes with social partners over conflicting needs? How are cooperation and conflict fundamentally related? My master’s thesis investigated life history predictors of postpartum depression in a population sample of US women. With my advisor, Dr. Ed Hagen, I recently published the first chapter of my dissertation, which found that grip strength is negatively associated with depression and accounts for some of the sex difference in depression in a US population sample. My fieldwork is located in Utila, Honduras where, in collaboration with my committee member Dr. Aaron Blackwell, my dissertation work tests whether immune activation mediates the relationship between stressful life events and depression in women with children.
	Sonya Sobel Field of study: MA Archaeology Advisor: Dr. John Blong Email: Sonya.sobel@wsu.edu I am a Master’s student in archaeology working with Dr. John Blong. I am interested in using microbotanical methods to study diet, communal food preparation activities, social structure, social transmission of food preference, and how changing environments impact diet, meal specification, and belief systems, specifically looking at the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene in the Northwest and Northern Great Basin. I am also more broadly interested in the intersection between microbotanical methods and geoarchaeology to look at site formation processes.
	Jordan Thompson Field of study: Ph.D. Archeology Advisor: Dr. Rachel Horowitz Email:jordan.j.thompson@wsu.edu I am a PhD student working with Dr. Horowitz and Dr. Blong. My primary research interests include lithic technology, geochemical analysis, geoarchaeology, zooarchaeology, and human-environment ecodynamics, with a regional focus in the Pacific Northwest and Columbia Plateau. I received my bachelor’s degree in anthropology with a minor in geology at Portland State University in 2016 and my master’s degree in anthropology at the University of Idaho in 2022. My master’s thesis utilized a combination of pXRF analysis, lithic analysis, and experimentation to provide an overview of vitrophyre, a form of volcanic glass, stone tools and their uses in the Clearwater River region of north central Idaho through an ecological foraging model. My dissertation research will use geoarchaeological approaches, among others, to investigate the traditional land use of the North Fork of the Clearwater River with an emphasis on fishing and hunting practices.
	Garrett Toombs Field of study: Archaeology Advisor: Dr. Rachel Horowitz Email:garrett.toombs@wsu.edu I am a first year MA student working with Dr. Rachel Horowitz. I am broadly interested in the lithic technology of precontact North and Central America. I employ experimental methods to recreate and test lithic tools and technologies to better understand the people and societies that used them. My BA was in anthropology and history from Wake Forest University, where my undergraduate thesis aimed to understand the lithic economy of the Late Woodland Piedmont Village Tradition along the Yadkin River.
	Daphne Weber Field of study: Ph.D. Cultural Anthropology Advisor: Dr. Julia Cassaniti Email:daphne.weber@wsu.edu I am a Ph.D. student in Cultural Anthropology working with Dr. Julia Cassaniti. I am interested in the role of women in Theravada Buddhism, specifically within Thai Buddhism.