Combined Ph.D. in Anthropology and Environment

Yale grounds

The Combined Ph.D. Program in Anthropology and Environment blends the disciplinary and theoretical strengths of the Anthropology Department with the interdisciplinary and theory-and-practice strengths of the School of the Environment. Students in this program frequently work on dissertation projects in environmental/ecological anthropology, social ecology, political ecology, and/or related fields. The Combined Ph.D. Program is open to applicants in any subfield of anthropology (archaeological, biological, or sociocultural/linguistic), and prospective students should refer to those programs as well. Detailed information about program history, requirements, and common trajectories may be found here (PDF).

Re sources and Common Connections:

Yale School of the Environment

Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies

Environmental Humanities Program

Program in Agrarian Studies

MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies

Environmental Social Science, PHD

On this page:, at a glance: program details.

  • Location: Tempe campus
  • Second Language Requirement: No

Program Description

Degree Awarded: PHD Environmental Social Science

The PhD program in environmental social science is one of the few doctoral degree programs in the U.S. that draw on the premise that reducing human impacts and developing more sustainable environmental practices are difficult, if not impossible, to achieve without a focus on the social dynamics of environmental issues using critical social science perspectives.

The program is organized around theoretically based conceptual domains:

  • culture and the environment
  • environmental hazards and vulnerability
  • environmental justice
  • human environment impacts
  • political ecology
  • science and technology studies

These are the bases for addressing various topical foci, including urban environments, technologies and their consequences, landscapes, institutions, and health and the environment.

Students work with faculty who have expertise in a broad range of fields, including:

  • archaeology
  • community resources
  • cultural and medical anthropology
  • environmental history
  • geographic information systems
  • human and physical geography
  • public affairs

Coursework for the degree is focused on developing practical skills and a solid grasp of complex social science approaches to environmental issues. Students work closely with their committee to develop a curriculum appropriate to their chosen interests and career goals.

Degree Requirements

Curriculum plan options.

  • 84 credit hours, a written comprehensive exam, an oral comprehensive exam, a prospectus and a dissertation

Students who enter the program with a master's degree in a related field may be granted up to 30 credit hours toward the 84 credit hour total required for the doctorate degree program. This leaves 30 credit hours of coursework, 12 credit hours of research credit and 12 hours of dissertation credit (54 credit hours total) to be earned after admission.

Students who enter the program without a master's degree must earn an additional 30 hours of graduate credit, produce a research portfolio that is formally evaluated by a faculty committee, and present that research in a public forum before continuing to the later stage of the doctorate degree program.

All students must maintain an average GPA of 3.20 (scale is 4.00 = "A") in their courses and complete degree requirements per the program's satisfactory progress policy.

Admission Requirements

Applicants must fulfill the requirements of both the Graduate College and The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Applicants are eligible to apply to the program if they have earned a bachelor's or master's degree from a regionally accredited institution. Undergraduate coursework in the social sciences (e.g., geography, political science, sociology, anthropology, planning or history) is not a prerequisite for admission but is generally advisable. Students may be admitted without such a background and may be required to acquire knowledge of the social sciences in a manner to be specified at the time of admission.

Applicants must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.00 (scale is 4.00 = "A") in the last 60 hours of their first bachelor's degree program or a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.00 (scale is 4.00 = "A") in an applicable master's degree program.

All applicants must submit:

  • graduate admission application and application fee
  • official transcripts
  • personal statement outlining educational and professional goals
  • current curriculum vitae or resume
  • three letters of recommendation
  • proof of English proficiency

Additional Application Information An applicant whose native language is not English must provide proof of English proficiency regardless of their current residency.

Applicants may include in the application materials an optional scholarly writing sample, not to exceed 30 double-spaced pages.

Next Steps to attend ASU

Learn about our programs, apply to a program, visit our campus, application deadlines, career opportunities.

The program trains students to move into teaching and research positions or to assume leadership roles in government, industry or nongovernmental organizations.

There is a demand in the job market for people with keen thinking skills who can manage, evaluate and interpret large amounts of data. As the many spheres of human interaction expand globally, people trained in this degree program are increasingly sought-after for their broad, holistic knowledge and perspectives. Some career opportunities include:

  • acting as legal advocates in international cases
  • analyzing and proposing policies
  • conducting postgraduate academic research
  • consulting for private and public organizations
  • curating cultural resources
  • directing nonprofit organizations
  • directing programs in the private or public sector
  • managing culture or heritage resources in the private or public sector
  • planning communities

Program Contact Information

If you have questions related to admission, please click here to request information and an admission specialist will reach out to you directly. For questions regarding faculty or courses, please use the contact information below.

Penn Arts & Sciences Logo

  • University of Pennsylvania
  • School of Arts and Sciences
  • Penn Calendar

Search form

Department of anthropology.

Penn Arts & Sciences Logo

Environmental Anthropology

phd in environmental anthropology

Introduction

Environmental Anthropology includes analysis of the contemporary world from a cultural and biological perspective, and the deep time depth of the archaeological record. Recent developments, both in the academy and in the world, make such an approach essential to the training of a new generation of students and citizens. As is evidenced in UN reports and academic conferences alike, humans are, more than ever before, a geological and climatological force, altering landscapes at a planetary scale.  As such, Cartesian and disciplinary approaches to understand environmental challenges, that treat the natural world as distinct from the social world, are today untenable to maintain. To better educate the next generation of citizens and scholars, it is increasingly important to provide a rigorous training to students that enables them to understand and have expertise over a world that is simultaneously social, natural, political and technical.

As a discipline that has long attended to the interaction of humans, society and the environment, using methods both of the natural and social sciences, Anthropology is well positioned to fulfill this need. By studying topics such as calories in diets, historic irrigation technologies, and legal exposure to toxins, faculty in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania have pioneered in the use of scientific and social scientific techniques to understand human-environment relations, both in the past and present.  

Environmental Anthropology @ Penn

Environmental Anthropology is critically important in making the insights of Anthropology available to society. Faculty strengths in this area include the recent addition of an archaeologist, a social anthropologist, and a biological anthropologist to an existing group of faculty researchers and teaching specialists for whom environmental anthropology is a key aspect of their work. Of the 16 members of the standing faculty in the department of anthropology, 11 offer courses approved for electives in Environmental Anthropology. New laboratories support faculty research, including the Paleoecology Lab (under direction of Prof. Kathleen Morrison), The Penn EnviroLab  (under direction of Profs. Nikhil Anand and Kristina Lyons) and the Biocultural Anthropology Methods Lab (under direction of Prof. Morgan Hoke). Teaching laboratories for environmental materials are housed at the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials (CAAM) in the Penn Museum . Four Anthropology faculty serve on the Faculty Working Group of the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities (Profs. Anand, Lyons, Petryna and Schurr); Prof. Kristina Lyons is a Core member of the PPEH. Three members of the faculty (Anand, Moore, and White) have received grants to support curriculum development in Environmental Anthropology in the Integrating Sustainability Across the Curriculum (ISAC) program through Penn Sustainability . 

Penn undergraduates can major in  Environmental Anthropology . Penn undergrads and recent grads working with anthropology faculty in the past three years have done environmentally-themed fieldwork across the globe with funding from PURM , CURF , Fulbright, and faculty grants from NSF and NASA . Several students have used mentorship from the department to undertake environmentally-themed projects while doing study abroad. Students who have pursued these projects are in graduate programs in anthropology, archaeology, environmental science; are headed for professional study in law and medicine; and are employed in business, research administration, and consulting. 

Primary Supervising Faculty from Anthropology

Dr. Nikhil Anand : [email protected]

Dr. Clark Erickson : [email protected]  

Dr. Kristina Lyons : [email protected]

Dr. Kathleen Morrison : [email protected]

Dr. Adriana Petryna : [email protected]

  • Request Info
  • Check Status

Anthropology PhD

Doctoral Program

The PhD in Anthropology program focuses on the environment with four-field training and varied field opportunities.

Start Your Bold Future

By submitting this form, I agree that UTSA may contact me by email, voice, pre-recorded message and/or text message using automated technology.

Please enable javascript in your browser

UTSA student examining fossils.

Why Pursue a PhD in Anthropology

Environmental anthropology develops empirical understandings of how humans culturally construct and organize their environments, as well as the power relations embedded in these activities. The overarching research agenda is one of praxis, the merging of theory and practice toward new syntheses, new ways of understanding, and new forms of engagement. At base, therefore, environmental anthropology is an applied social science, expressly directing anthropological knowledge toward the resolution of real-world problems.

The doctoral program in Anthropology at UTSA will prepare leading professionals for applied fields as well as academic research and teaching careers. Graduate course offerings view environmental anthropology through multiple lenses: political economy, landscape ecology, cultural ecology and evolution, medical anthropology, and primate conservation and behavioral ecology.

phd in environmental anthropology

Research Opportunities

Faculty research specializations include:

  • Archaeology of the Maya lowlands and Andean South America
  • Archaeology of Texas and the Greater Southwest
  • Primate behavioral and conservation ecology in Southeast Asia and Africa
  • Conservation and mining practices in the South Pacific
  • Indigenous and environmental politics in lowland and Andean South America
  • The cultural anthropology of Texas and the Plains
  • Medical anthropology of the U.S.-Mexico border region
  • Admission Requirements

Application Deadlines

Funding opportunities, career options, admission & application requirements.

Applications are submitted through the UTSA Graduate Application . Please upload all required documents (listed below) on your UTSA Graduate Application. It is the applicant’s responsibility to ensure completion and submission of the application, a nonrefundable application fee, and all required supporting documents are on file with UTSA by the appropriate application deadline.

Anthropology (PhD)
Admission is only available for the Fall semester
Required Degree
Minimum GPA
Coursework
Transcripts*
Credential Evaluation directly from the graduate admission application platform
English Language Proficiency
Purpose Statement
Resume
Letters of Recommendation
Writing Sample
*

Applicants are encouraged to have their admission file completed as early as possible. All applications, required documents and letters of recommendation, if applicable, must be submitted by 5:00 PM U.S. Central Time on the day of the deadline. Deadlines are subject to change.

Anthropology (PhD)
Application Deadlines for: Priority International Domestic
Fall 2025 December 1 December 1
Spring Not Available Not Available
Summer Not Available Not Available

UTSA prepares you for future careers that are in demand. The possible careers below is data pulled by a third-party tool called Emsi, which pulls information from sources like the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Census Bureau, online job postings, other government databases and more to give you regional and national career outlook related to this academic program.

Earning a Master's Degree

While in a doctoral program, a student may earn a master’s degree provided the following conditions are satisfied:

  • A student must be admitted to candidacy.
  • A student is eligible to receive a master’s degree upon completion of University-wide requirements and any additional degree requirements specific to the program.
  • The Doctoral Studies Committee, Department Chair, and the Graduate Associate Dean of the College must recommend students for the degree.
  • The student must apply for graduation by the published deadline the semester prior to awarding the doctoral degree.
  • All required coursework in the doctoral program at the time of admission to candidacy must have been taken within the previous six years.
  • If the master’s degree requires a thesis, the degree cannot be awarded on the basis of the doctoral qualifying examination.
  • Students will not be approved for an additional master’s degree in the same field in which an individual has previously received a master’s degree.

Course Offerings & Schedule

Typically, our graduate courses are offered on weekday afternoons. Classes may either meet once a week for three hours or twice a week for 1.5 hours each. We do not currently offer night or weekend classes.

phd in environmental anthropology

Graduate Advisor of Record

Jamon Halvaksz, PhD

210-458-5872

  • Skip to Content
  • Catalog Home
  • Institution Home

School of the Environment 2024–2025

  • Yale University Publications /
  • A Message from the Dean /

Doctoral Degree Program

The Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree is conferred through the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Work toward this doctoral degree is directed by the Environment department of the graduate school, which is composed of the faculty of the School of the Environment. Doctoral work is concentrated in areas of faculty research, which currently encompass the following broad foci: agroforestry; biodiversity conservation; biostatistics and biometry; climate science; community ecology; ecosystems ecology; ecosystems management; energy and the environment; environmental and resource policy; environmental anthropology; environmental biophysics and meteorology; environmental chemistry; environmental ethics; environmental governance; environmental health risk assessment; environmental history; environmental law and politics; environmental management and social ecology in developing countries; forest ecology; green chemistry and engineering; hydrology; industrial ecology; industrial environmental management; plant physiology and anatomy; pollution management; population ecology; resource economics; silviculture; social ecology; stand development, tropical ecology, and conservation; sustainable development; urban ecology; urban geography; urban land cover change; urban planning; and water resource management.

Requirements for the Doctoral Degree

All courses listed in this bulletin are open to students working toward the doctoral degree. Additional courses are available in other departments—e.g., Anthropology; Chemistry; Earth and Planetary Sciences; Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Economics; Management; Mathematics; Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology; Political Science; Sociology; and Statistics and Data Science—and are listed in the bulletin of the graduate school.

A doctoral committee will be appointed for each student no later than the student’s second term in the program. The committee consists of a minimum of two faculty members from the Yale University community. When appropriate for their research areas, students are encouraged to suggest committee members from other universities or institutions. Doctoral students work under the supervision of their doctoral committees. The committee should be chaired or co-chaired by a YSE ladder faculty member.

Students are required to take the Doctoral Student Seminar ( ENV 900 ) during the first year of their program.

Two Honors grades must be achieved before a student is eligible to sit for the qualifying examination. In addition, students are expected to serve four terms (ten hours per week) as teaching fellows, in partial fulfillment of their doctoral training.

A written and oral qualifying examination is required upon completion of the course requirements. Students are expected to take the examination by the end of their second year, although this can be extended to the third year in cases with appropriate extenuating circumstances. At the time of the qualifying examination, the student must present a prospectus of the research work proposed for the dissertation. Successful completion of the qualifying examination and submission of the prospectus will result in admission to candidacy.

The director of doctoral studies (DDS) of the school serves as director of graduate studies for the Environment department of the graduate school, administers the doctoral program, and may be consulted if questions arise.

Before beginning work, the student must secure approval from the student’s committee and the DDS for a proposed program of study and for the general plan of the dissertation. Appropriate advanced work is required. Courses chosen should form a coherent plan of study and should support research work for the proposed dissertation.

The dissertation should demonstrate the student’s mastery of the chosen field of study as well as the ability to do independent scholarly work and to formulate conclusions that may modify or enlarge previous knowledge.

Candidates must present themselves for the oral defense of the dissertation at such time and place as the student, the DDS, and the committee determine. Upon completion of the dissertation, the candidate must make unbound copies of the dissertation available to the faculty. Copies of the approved dissertation must be submitted to the graduate school.

Combined Doctoral Degree

Department of anthropology.

The School of the Environment offers a combined doctoral degree with Yale’s Department of Anthropology. The purpose of the degree is threefold: it combines (1) the disciplinary identity and strengths of the Anthropology department with the interdisciplinary character and possibilities of YSE, especially in terms of bridging the social and natural sciences; (2) the strengths in ecological and environmental studies of YSE with the social science strengths of the Anthropology department; and (3) the Anthropology department’s strengths in theory with the emphasis within YSE on linking theory with policy and practice. The combined doctoral degree offers its graduates great flexibility when entering the marketplace. They can represent themselves as anthropologists and/or environmental scientists, as theoreticians and/or practitioners. They have the credentials to apply for policy-oriented positions with international institutions, as well as academic positions in teaching and research. The academic program of each student in the combined-degree program is to some extent tailored specifically to that student’s particular history, interests, and needs, but all combined-degree students are expected to follow the program’s general guidelines.

Prospective combined-degree students must initially apply either to Anthropology or to the doctoral program in Environment (not both) and check the combined-degree box on the application form. Students should communicate with faculty in both programs during the year prior to application, and they should apply to the program where their credentials and faculty contacts offer the greatest chance of admission. The program is extremely competitive, accepting one or two students per year out of dozens who apply. (Note: most successful applicants to YSE hold a prior master’s degree.)

Once a student is accepted in either Environment or Anthropology, the application file is sent to the second department for consideration. A positive decision at this point amounts to acceptance into the combined-degree program. (A negative decision, which is rare in any case, does not affect the student’s prior admission into the first program.) Students admitted into the combined-degree program will be allocated to the department to which they initially applied as their primary administrative home, but they will enter Yale as members of the combined-degree program. A student who does not apply to the combined-degree program at the time of their initial application to Yale may still apply after matriculating at Yale, but this should be done as soon as possible in their first term on campus.

Detailed guidelines for the combined-degree program can be found on the YSE website at http://environment.yale.edu/doctoral/degrees/combined-anthropology . The program coordinators are Michael Dove (YSE) and Kalyanakrishnan Sivaramakrishnan (Anthropology).

New York Botanical Garden

The School of the Environment offers a combined doctoral degree with the New York Botanical Garden, which is funded by the Lewis B. Cullman Fellowship. The objective is to train biological scientists to use an interdisciplinary approach to solving problems associated with tropical environments.

Areas of study include agroforestry and forest management, ecosystem analysis, economic botany, economic evaluation of tropical resources, ethnobotany, plant biodiversity and conservation, social processes affecting management of natural resources, tropical field studies, and tropical silviculture.

For more information about the combined doctoral degree, please contact the director of doctoral studies at 203.432.5146.

Print Options

Send Page to Printer

Print this page.

Download Page (PDF)

The PDF will include all information unique to this page.

Download 2021-22 School of the Environment PDF

Test Name Past Dissertation Defense

Graduate Program

The Anthropology graduate program provides students with excellent training in theory and methods, enabling them to pursue an advanced graduate degree in many subfields of Anthropology, including archaeology, ecology, environmental anthropology, evolution, linguistic, medical anthropology, political economy, science and technology, and sociocultural anthropology.

The doctoral program prepares students to conduct independent research and analysis in Anthropology.  Through completion of advanced course work and rigorous skills training, the doctoral program prepares students to make original contributions to the knowledge of anthropology and to interpret and present the results of such research.  Eligible PhD students from other disciplines at Stanford University may also pursue a PhD Minor in Anthropology. See PhD Program Flyer for more information.

The department offers a Coterminal MA degree in Anthropology for current Stanford undergraduates seeking to obtain a MA degree while completing their BA degree in the same or different department. The department also offers a Terminal MA degree in Anthropology for Stanford graduate students, either in anthropology or in other disciplines, who have fulfilled the MA degree requirements for the MA 'on the way to the PhD'.

Over 1,500  doctoral dissertations  have been completed in the department since 1895.  Anthropology alumni pursue successful careers in teaching, research, or non-academic careers in the United States and worldwide.

Beyond the Classroom

In close collaboration with Stanford  faculty members  and  department leadership , our graduate students organize number of event series that contribute to the department's intellectual life and community.  The Graduate Student Organization (GSO) representatives act as a liaison between the department leadership and the graduate student body, actively participating in department issues, and providing a supportive community for the first-year PhD student cohort as well as other for other PhD and M. graduate students. Graduate students also engage with unique research, curricular, and professionalization activities. 

Fields of Study

Our graduate s tudents may choose from the following Department tracks: 1) Archaeology; 2) Culture and Society.  Students work closely with faculty members who are engaged in research informed by a wide array of theoretical perspectives from political to spiritual. Subfields in Archeology include: cities, gender and sexuality, and materiality. Students interested in Culture and Society can focus on a wide range of issues such as: linguistic anthropology, culture and mind, medical anthropology, and global political economy.   Explore each Research Area and its faculty .

The Anthropology Department offers 5 years of financial support to PhD students.  No funding is offered for student enrolled in the co-terminal and terminal MA programs.

Join dozens of  Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences students  who gain valuable leadership skills in a multidisciplinary, multicultural community as  Knight-Hennessy Scholars  (KHS). As a scholar, students join a distinguished cohort, participate in up to three years of leadership programming, and receive full funding for up to three years of Doctoral studies at Stanford. The KHS application deadline is October 11, 2023. Learn more about  KHS admission .

How to Apply

Please review admissions for policies and requirements for each degree program by visiting the specific degree program page listed above. Please also consider reviewing the Stanford School of Humanities & Sciences'  Guide on Getting into Grad School  to explore which graduate program may best suit your interest, what graduate committees look for, and the benefits and challenges for pursuing a graduate degree.

Program Contacts

Angela Garcia

Angela Garcia

Lochlann Jain

Lochlann Jain

  • The Student Experience
  • Financial Aid
  • Degree Finder
  • Undergraduate Arts & Sciences
  • Departments and Programs
  • Research, Scholarship & Creativity
  • Centers & Institutes
  • Geisel School of Medicine
  • Guarini School of Graduate & Advanced Studies
  • Thayer School of Engineering
  • Tuck School of Business

Campus Life

  • Diversity & Inclusion
  • Athletics & Recreation
  • Student Groups & Activities
  • Residential Life

Anthropology

Department of anthropology.

  • [email protected] Contact & Department Info Mail
  • Learning Outcomes
  • Tell us your Story
  • Diversity & Inclusion
  • Undergraduate
  • Modified Major
  • Global Health Minor
  • How to Declare an Anthropology Major or Minor
  • Introductory Courses
  • Archaeology
  • Biological Anthropology
  • Cultural Anthropology
  • Independent Study
  • Culminating Seminars
  • Past Teaching Schedules
  • Honors Proposal Submission Form
  • Transfer Credits
  • Foreign Study
  • Applying for the FSP
  • While You Are There
  • Independent Research
  • Student Research Projects
  • Faculty Research Projects
  • Goodman STUDENT Research Funding Form
  • Goodman Student Conference Support
  • Goodman FACULTY Research Funding Form
  • McKennan Postdoc Fellowship
  • McKennan Prize Winners
  • Wesbrook Prize Winners
  • Nichols Prize Winners
  • Ethnography Lab Videos
  • News & Events
  • News & Events
  • Student News
  • Faculty News
  • Symposiums & Conferences
  • Lectures & Colloquia

Search form

phd in environmental anthropology

EEES Website

Ecology, evolution, environment & society (eees).

The Department of Anthropology offers a PhD through the interdisciplinary program in Ecology, Evolution, Environment & Society (EEES). EEES is a new vision for scholarship, education, and service focused on understanding the complexities of human-environment interaction at different spatial and temporal scales.

At Dartmouth we believe that an interdisciplinary program holds the greatest potential for identifying, communicating, and ameliorating the challenges of rapid environmental change and corresponding social inequities. Dartmouth is well positioned for this role due to its tradition of international leadership in the natural sciences and interdisciplinary environmental studies. Anthropologists in the EEES program explore these dynamics using perspectives from archaeology, evolutionary biology, political ecology and other approaches. The EEES program, which brings together faculty from Anthropology, Geography, Biology, Earth Sciences, and Environmental Studies, is designed to train top young scholars to conduct innovative research while promoting capacity for integrating natural and social sciences to address the socio-ecological challenges of the 21st century. Prospective students should contact a potential EEES mentor .

Please visit the EEES website .

Environmental Anthropology

Environmental anthropology investigates human relations with the environment. It examines how we shape the environments we live in, and how relations with the environment shape culture and social organization. This is an interdisciplinary, collaborative endeavor spanning the subdisciplines of anthropology and intersecting environmental research in fields including geography, the earth sciences, ethnobotany, biology and the environmental humanities. Understanding Indigenous natural resource conservation and management practices, island ecosystems, human-primate interactions (“ethnoprimatology”), and the environmental implications of globalization - these are all examples of environmental anthropology. The focus on cultural, political and social dimensions of human interactions with the environment, as well the depth of time afforded by archaeological approaches, makes environmental anthropology a cornerstone of modern anthropology. Environmental anthropologists are employed by the public, private and nonprofit sectors in positions ranging from community engagement to managing natural environments, sustainability and conservation biology.

Core Faculty

  • Christopher Bae
  • Patrick Kirch
  • Jonathan Padwe
  • Christian Peterson
  • Seth Quintus
  • Barry Rolett
  • Miriam Stark

Related Courses

  • ANTH 204/SUST 204: Historical Ecology of Hawaiʻi
  • ANTH 325: Origins of Cities
  • ANTH 328: Food Origins, Food Culture
  • ANTH 333/SUST 333: Climate Change and Cultural Response: Past, Present, and Future
  • ANTH 335/SUST 335: Society and Environment
  • ANTH 360: Primate Behavioral Ecology
  • ANTH 375: Race and Human Variation
  • ANTH 412: Evolutionary Anthropology
  • ANTH 424: Islands as Model Systems: Human Biogeography of the Pacific
  • ANTH 431: Indigenous Crops/Food Systems
  • ANTH 440: The Agriculture of Identity: Food and Farming in Anthropological Perspective
  • ANTH 444: Spiritual Ecology
  • ANTH 445: Sacred Places
  • ANTH 459/ANTH 659: Extinctions
  • ANTH 460/ANTH 660: Asian Paleoanthropology
  • ANTH 461: Southeast Asian Archaeology
  • ANTH 482/SUST 482: Anthropology and the Environment: Culture, Power, and Politics

Collecting sediments for paleoenvironmental studies, Mo'orea, Society Islands (French Polynesia).

Quick links

  • Directories

Environment

Related faculty.

Photo of Ben Fitzhugh from 2020

Ben Fitzhugh

Headshot photography of Denise Golver with a blurred background.

Denise Glover

phd in environmental anthropology

Radhika Govindrajan

phd in environmental anthropology

Devon G. Peña

Latest news.

  • The Dubal Memorial Lecture: Weighing the Future: Race, Science, and Pregnancy Trials in the Postgenomic Era (October 2, 2023)
  • Anthropology, actually —  Primates and South American dreams (March 6, 2019)
  • Voices of Maiz, have your voice heard (October 25, 2016)

Related Research

  • Tess Beschel, María Elena García, Nastasia Paul-Gera, J. Shelby House and Rachel Ann Rothenberg  “‘The end of nature’: pedagogies of grief and more-than-human relations," in Lost Kingdom: Animal Death   in the Anthropocene , eds. Arianne Conty and Wendy Wiseman (Delaware: Vernon Press, forthcoming). 
  • House, J. Shelby. Review of  Animal Enthusiasms: Beyond Cage and Leash in Rural Pakistan  by Muhammad Kavesh.  South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies  45, no. 2 (March 2022): 394-395, https://doi.org/10.1080/00856401.2022.2040814. 
  • House, J. Shelby. Review of Crooked Cats: Beastly Encounters in the Anthropocene by Nayanika Mathur.  South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies  45, no. 5 (Aug 2022): 944-946, https://doi.org/10.1080/00856401.2022.2107848.
  • House, J. Shelby. Review of Uncivil City: Ecology, Equity and the Commons in Delhi  by Amita Baviskar,  South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies  44, no. 5 (Sept 2021): 1021-1022, DOI: 10.1080/00856401.2021.1970876
  • Hayes, E. H., Field, J. H., Coster, A. C. F., Fullagar, R., Matheson, C., Florin, S. A., Nango, M., Djandjomerr, D., Marwick, B., Wallis, L. A., Smith, M. A., & Clarkson, C. (2021). Holocene grinding stones at Madjedbebe reveal the processing of starchy plant taxa and animal tissue.  Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports , 35, 102754
  • Fitzhugh, B., W.A. Brown, N. Misarti .  2020 “Archaeological Paleodemography: Resilience, Robustness and Population Crashes around the North Pacific Rim.” In, A rctic Crashes: People and Animals in the Changing North , edited by I. Krupnik, A. Crowell. Smithsonian Scholarly Press, Washington D.C. Pp. 43-60.
  • Gjesfjeld, Erik, Michael A. Etnier, Katsunori Takase, William A. Brown and Ben Fitzhugh. 2020 “Biogeography and adaptation in the Kuril Islands, Northeast Asia.” World Archaeology.   DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2019.1715248
  • Florin, S. Anna, Andrew S. Fairbairn, May Nango, Djaykuk Djandjomerr, Ben Marwick, Richard Fullagar, Mike Smith, Lynley A. Wallis & Chris Clarkson (2020). The first Australian plant foods at Madjedbebe, 65,000–53,000 years ago.  Nature Communications  11, 924
  • Ulil, Amri. Of mysterious whispers and biodiesel : the engtanglement of religion and everyday environmental practices in Indonesia. Diss. of U of Washington. 2019.
  • Griffin, P. Joshua. Breathing Room: Climate Displacement, Biopolitics, and Indigenous Sovereignty in Northwest Alaska. Diss. U of Washington. 2019.
  •   Instagram
  •   Twitter
  •   YouTube
  •   Newsletter

With five ethnobiologists on our permanent faculty, WSU offers unsurpassed training in ethnobiology.  Our research examines past and present relationships of human societies with plants and animals. We integrate ethnobotany, paleoethnobotany, ethnozoology, paleoethnozoology and ethnoecology within broader sociocultural and archaeological dynamics of sustainability, societal scale, human health, and human evolution. Students should apply to the Socio cultural Anthropology or Archaeology program, depending on which best aligns with their research interests. We have strong funding prospects, we seek graduate students to mentor and with whom to engage in research, and we welcome you to contact us. Please click on the names below to learn more about each of our faculty members.

Dr. John Blong   Interests: Hunter-gatherer adaptations and landscape use, peopling of the Americas, precontact history of Alaska, the Great Basin, and the Columbia Plateau, environmental archaeology, geoarchaeology, paleoethnobotany, lithic analysis

Dr. Colin Grier   is a zooarchaeologist whose  research interest concerns the organization of complex hunter-gatherer-fisher societies in the Pacific Northwest Coast and Korea.

Dr. Marsha Quinlan is an ethnobotanist and medical anthropologist. She examines usage, taxonomy and traditional ecological knowledge of plants and animals, with particular attention to health, ethnomedicine, and medical ethnobotany (NE Amazon, Caribbean, US, E. Africa).

Dr. Robert Quinlan is an ecological and medical anthropologist working primarily in East Africa. His most recent ethnobiological work examines livestock management practices and use of veterinary antibiotics in Tanzania, especially as these practices influence antibiotic resistance. This research is in collaboration with the Allen School for Global Animal Health, where Dr. Quinlan is a faculty affiliate. He has also initiated a collaborative, interdisciplinary study of social-ecological systems in SW Ethiopia focusing on small-holder subsistence practices and household responses to environmental perturbations. Dr. Quinlan is interested in mentoring graduate students in ecological anthropology and ethnobiology on topics directly related to development and resilience in East Africa. Students interested in studies of the culture, ecology and economics of enset (Enset ventricosum) and maize agriculture in Ethiopia, and agro-pastoralism in East Africa are especially welcomed to enquire about graduate study with Dr. Quinlan.

Dr. Erin Thornton   is   a broadly-trained environmental archaeologist with a regional focus on New World societies, and methodological expertise in zooarchaeology, human osteology and stable isotope analysis. Her current research is based primarily in the Maya cultural region, but I have also conducted archaeological research in Peru, the Caribbean, and the southeastern United States. Her current research addresses socio-economic questions related to subsistence, animal management, political economy and exchange, and environmental questions regarding human impacts on and responses to deforestation, climate, and changing wildlife populations.

Dr. Emily Van Alst is an Indigenous archeologist who works in the Northern Plains of the United States.  She explores how Indigenous women’s cultural and ecological knowledge about landscape features and plants can further aid in contextualizing and interpreting rock art imagery. Her broader interests include rock art, traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), community-based research methods, ethnobotany, and gender.

Course Information : The Department of Anthropology currently offers undergraduate courses in Cultural Ecology, and Past Environments and Culture (Sustainability). At the graduate level we offer seminars in Zooarchaeology; Paleoethnobotany; and, Settlement and Agro-Pastoralism; and we are developing a seminar in Ecological Anthropology and Ethnobiology / Environmental Anthropology and a course entitled Feeding the World which looks at global farming systems in a cross-disciplinary perspective.

Home

Why Major in Anthropology?

Many employers value the skills and perspectives that develop from learning to think like an anthropologist. 

Ecological and Environmental Anthropology

Relationship between humans and the natural world.

Ecological and environmental anthropology at the University of Georgia examines the past and present reciprocal relationship between humans and the natural world. Our archaeological, biological, and cultural anthropology investigations yield critical knowledge of diverse dimensions of the human experience that we then apply in socially relevant ways.

Baldwin Hall

Contacting the Department

355 South Jackson Street Baldwin Hall Room 250 University of Georgia Athens, GA 30602 Phone: 706-542-3922 [email protected]

Our Programs

Major In Anthropology

Minor in Anthropology

PhD in Anthropolgy

ICON Graduate Program

Featured Content

Dr. Pilaar Birch standing at her field site in Jordan

Tuesday, August 27, 2024

Dr. Suzanne Pilaar Birch researches past civilizations' responses to climate change

Beige Minimalist Grayscale Photography Exhibition flyer. Black text says "Fall 2024 Anthropology  Photography Contest Exhibition, Baldwin Hall Room 250 1:00-2:00 pm anthro@uga.edu, October 2nd"

Fall 2024 Photo Contest Exhibition

phd in environmental anthropology

Danielle Riebe

Assistant professor, latest news.

Schultz taking selfie with gorilla

Monday, August 26, 2024

How Rhiannon Schultz is enhancing gorilla health in zoos

student in the forest waist-deep in water smiling at the camera

Thursday, August 15, 2024

Mapping the future: How a PhD student is reshaping conservation in Indonesia 

Dr. Sturt Manning and Dr. Brita Lorentzen selecting samples from collections found in archeological sites in the St. Lawrence Valley.

Friday, July 19, 2024

Dating Iroquoia project captures national attention in Canada

Upcoming events, october 2 | 1 - 2pm fall 2024 photo contest exhibition, february 20 | 11am - 3pm anthroday 2025, support anthropology at uga.

Your support helps bring in speakers of note, provides student research funding, assists in student fieldwork and conference travel, and creates new resources to further enrich each learner's experience. Learn more about how you can support the Department of Anthropology .

Every dollar given has a direct impact upon our students and faculty.

Our Graduate Program

At the University of Georgia, themes of ecology and environment connect our cultural anthropologists, anthropological archaeologists, and biological anthropologists to one another and to scholars and practitioners beyond the department and the university.  Our interdisciplinary and integrative connections give our work scholarly and practical relevance.  We offer a Ph.D. in Anthropology, and a Ph.D. in  Anthropology and Integrative Conservation .  A master's degree is not required to apply to our Ph.D. program.

View more about our Graduate Program

Major or minor in Anthropology

Here at UGA, students can either major or minor in anthropology. Those who major in anthropology receive a Bachelors of Arts degree. To learn about Anthropology undergraduate courses, study abroad opportunities, and more, click here. Learn more about our Degrees

  • Academic Programs
  • Doctoral Program
  • Doctor of Philosophy — PhD

The doctoral program cultivates scholars who are equipped to understand and develop solutions to complex environmental challenges.

On This Page

Program overview.

Doctoral students work with the school’s world-renowned faculty to collaboratively design cutting-edge research projects that engage them in scientific discovery, policy, public discourse, and action.  The five-year program is fully funded and independent of any faculty research grants, allowing doctoral students the intellectual freedom to explore the environmental issues that most inspire them. Students also have access to a broad array of resources across Yale University and its professional and graduate schools, including its faculty and library system.  Graduates complete the doctoral program having gained disciplinary depth and strong leadership skills that enable success in any career path — academic, government research, policy, nonprofits, and the private sector.

Doctoral students at YSE receive five years of guaranteed funding, independent of any faculty research grants, allowing doctoral students the intellectual freedom to explore the environmental issues that most inspire them.

Doctoral Program Handbook

Combined Doctoral Degree Programs

Combined PhD — Yale Anthropology Combined PhD — New York Botanical Garden

Degree Awarded

Doctor of Philosophy — PhD

Program Duration

Required credit hours, additional program options.

  • Combined PhD — Yale Anthropology
  • Combined PhD — NY Botanical Garden

Why YSE Doctoral Programs?

A PhD researcher in the field

Research Independence and Funding

Doctoral students at YSE receive five years of guaranteed funding , independent of any faculty research grants, allowing doctoral students the intellectual freedom to explore the environmental issues that most inspire them.

  • Current Dissertation Titles
  • Funding Information

A cohort of 9 PhD graduates celebrating commencement

Acclaimed Faculty

Working closely with some of the top experts in their fields is one of the advantages of a YSE doctoral degree. Our faculty are committed to mentoring the next generation of environmental leaders to tackle the world’s most urgent problems.

  • YSE Faculty

Student and Alumni Spotlights

Eleanor Stokes speaking on a NASA stage

Tracking Environmental and Infrastructure Damage in Ukraine

As co-leader of Black Marble, NASA’s light dataset, Eleanor Stokes '18 PhD is currently tracking the effects of Russian military strikes on Ukraine’s infrastructure and climate-induced natural disasters across the world. NASA’s Black Marble science team, which uses data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite aboard NASA’s Suomi NPP satellite spacecraft  to map  disaster impacts in vulnerable communities , was awarded the 2020 NASA Group Achievement Award for helping realize the vision of the  NASA-ESA-JAXA COVID dashboard  and enabling international partnership in a time of need.  “Humanity is facing major global risks from extreme weather and rising sea levels,” Stokes says. “It’s very important to have a satellite record that can speak to the human piece of the puzzle.

Yufang Gao in the mountains

Redefining Human-Wildlife Conflict

In the Tibetan Plateau, Yufang Gao ’14 MESc, ’23 PhD interviews, observes, and travels with Tibetan herders and Buddhist monks. He sets up camera traps and collects scat to analyze the diet of snow leopards. And he has hiked a mountainside 15,000 feet above sea level — all in pursuit of data for his dissertation focused on the quest for harmonious coexistence between people and large carnivores. What is needed for human-wildlife coexistence is a different perspective about conflict, Gao says. “Conflict,” he has found, “is part of coexistence.”

  • Master of Environmental Science - MESc

Rich Guldin leaning against a tree in the forest

Tracking Forest Inventory

Richard Guldin ’76 MFS, ’79 PhD  has helped reinvent the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program by integrating new sampling designs, field procedures, and innovative software to create an annual inventory that has become a global model. His work earned him the Society of American Foresters’ Sir William Schlich Award.

  • Master of Forest Science — MFS

Contact the Doctoral Program

Elisabeth Barsa is the contact for students interested in the YSE doctoral program.

Elisabeth Barsa

Elisabeth Barsa

Doctoral Program Coordinator

Admissions and Funding Information

Our doctoral program offers scholars from diverse backgrounds the opportunity to pursue a highly individualized area of inquiry under the mentorship of a YSE faculty member. The research conducted by YSE PhD candidates spans global and disciplinary boundaries — and what’s more, it is fully funded.

Doctoral students at YSE receive 5 years of guaranteed funding. Funding packages consist of a stipend , full tuition coverage, and health insurance. For more information on funding and benefits for doctoral students at Yale, visit the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences' stipend payments and financial support pages.

Apply to the PhD Program

Related Items

  • PhD Student Directory
  • Doctoral Admissions

Connect with us

  • Request Information
  • Register for Events
  • Apply to UMaine

Department of Anthropology

Anthropology and environmental policy doctoral program.

Minimum number of credits required to graduate:   36 (w/ related Master’s); 60 (without)

Minimum cumulative GPA required to graduate:   3.0

Application deadline for fall admission: January 1st. More information about application and admission can be found on the Graduate School website.

Graduate Coordinator:  Christine Beitl, Associate Professor of Anthropology, 5773 South Stevens Hall, Room 228A, (207) 581-1893, [email protected]

AEP Handbook 2024-2025

A variety of environmental specters threaten Earth’s populations. Greenhouse-gas emissions are changing earth systems, global ecology, species distributions, disease patterns, and land-use. Ocean fisheries and forests in many parts of the world, including Maine, are in precipitous decline. Loss of agricultural land in combination with ineffective governance and population increases may result in widespread famines in the near future. There are also growing problems associated with nutrient pollution, loss of wildlife and biodiversity, soil erosion, the depletion of non-renewable resources, and environmental degradation. These problems affect people, but people also cause them. Many, moreover, are global in origin but local in their effects. Demands on forests and fisheries are international, for example, but the environmental consequences are felt locally in over-cut woodlands and wiped-out fisheries. Climate is affected by human activity at a global level, but climate changes will have very different effects in different regions of the globe. Since Maine is a natural resource state, the global origins of these threats are particularly relevant to the people of Maine, their culture, and their society.

Special Resources and Programs

Anthropology faculty hold joint appoints or cooperating status with a number of units across the University of Maine campus. These include the Climate Change Institute, the School of Marine Sciences, the School of Economics, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions, Native American Programs, the Maine Folklife Center, and the Hudson Museum. As members of this program, graduate students are able to take advantage of these interdisciplinary connections.

Graduate Teaching Assistantships and Work Study positions are available on a competitive basis for qualified students.

Career Opportunities

Graduates of this program are able to understand the intricacies and implications of human-environment interactions at multiple scales in ways that may inform policy decisions at local, national, and international levels. Students gain valuable research experience grounded in ethnographic methods and analysis under the guidance of their faculty mentor and dissertation committee. Graduates of this program generally seek positions in academia, as well as public and private sectors, including state, national, and international institutions that deal with policy decisions related to the human dimensions of environmental change, environmental management, and resource conservation.

The Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology and Environmental Policy (AEP)

The PhD program in Anthropology and Environmental Policy centers on understanding human society and culture in cross-cultural perspective and their pivotal role in implementing successful environmental policy. The program engages students in a multi-disciplinary framework bridging environmental sciences and policy while focusing on the sociocultural impacts of, and responses to, local and global environmental change.

Students engage with faculty in cutting-edge research on the way social relations, human organization, cultural perceptions, and ecological behavior affect both the causes and consequences of local, national, and global environmental change. Students analyze social and cultural dimensions of policy that mitigate negative environmental consequences of this change while safeguarding or promoting human well-being. Areas of environmental policy and research include global climate change, energy resources, marine resources, eco-tourism, forestry resources, land-use, water management, environmental justice, and pollution control.

The program core has a firm grounding in anthropological social and cultural theory, qualitative and/or quantitative methodology, and policy development and analysis. Students engage in methodological and specialized courses tailored to their specific environmental interests at the local, national, or international scale.

Students may enter the program with a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Anthropology, Biology, Climate Change, Economics, Marine Sciences, Forestry, or any other related field. All students take the Core Curriculum courses in cross-cultural human dimensions, with the remaining curriculum individually tailored depending on each student’s background, environmental focus area, and national or international environmental policy interest. Courses in policy and basic methodology will be dependent on courses students have taken previously.

Students in the program will normally select their main advisor from the Anthropology Department but are expected to include faculty from affiliated departments on their committees or as co-advisors.

For additional information, please see the Graduate Handbook (coming soon).

Program Requirements

For students entering with a Bachelor’s degree, the PhD program requires completion of 60 credit hours of graduate coursework. For those entering the program with a relevant Master’s degree, the PhD program requires completion of 36 credit hours of graduate coursework. All students must complete 12 hours of core requirements, with the remaining courses tailored to each student’s background, environmental focus area, and national or international environmental policy interest. Students enrolled in the PhD program can apply to have their MA degree conferred once coursework requirements for the Master’s degree are completed.

Course Requirements

Required core courses (12cr)

ANT500-Advanced Social Theory (3cr)

ANT550-Anthropological Dimensions of Environmental Policy (3cr)

     plus two of the following

ANT510-Climate, Culture, and the Biosphere (3cr)

ANT530-Human Dimensions of Climate Change (3cr)

ANT564-Ecological Anthropology (3cr)

*Note: the third course can serve as one of the ANT electives below

Sample of elective courses available in Anthropology (9cr minimum):

ANT420-Human Impacts on Ancient Environments (3cr)

ANT475-Environmental Archaeology (3cr)

ANT553-Governance of the Commons and Global Change (3cr)

ANT555-Resource Management in Cross-Cultural Perspective (3cr)

ANT566-Economic Anthropology (3cr)

ANT597-Advanced Topics (requires approval)

*Note: students should decide with their advisor and committee which elective courses are needed to complete their degree. In some cases, students may have non-ANT courses count toward this requirement with permission from the Graduate Coordinator and the Department Chair.

Sample of relevant courses to meet the methods requirement (3cr minimum) :

ANT521-Geographic Information Systems I (3cr)

ANT522-Geographic Information Systems II (3cr)

ANT560-Research Design and Methods (3cr)

SFR528-Qualitative Data in Natural Resources (3cr)

ECO581-Agent-based Modeling (3cr)

CMJ604-Qualitative Communication Methods

EHD571-Qualitative Research: Theory, Design, Practice

EHD573-Statistical Methods in Education I

*Note: students are required to take at least three credit hours of a methodological course in anthropology or in another program (approved by the committee)

Sample of elective coursework available in cooperating departments (6cr minimum):

ECO450-International Environmental Economics and Policy (3cr)

ECO477-Economics of Environmental and Resource Management (3cr)

ECO571-Advanced Environmental and Resource Economics (3cr)

ECO582-Human Dimensions of Global Change (3cr)

HTY479-United States Environmental History (3cr)

HTY577-Environmental History (3cr)

PHI432-Environmental Philosophy and Policy (3cr)

SMS552-Coupled Human and Natural Systems (3cr)

SMS567-Knowledge and Participation in the Science Policy Process (3cr)

WLE431-Wildlife Management and Forestry (3cr)

WLE461-Human Dimensions of Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation (3cr)

WLE470-Wildlife Policy and Administration (3cr)

*Note: students should decide with their advisor and committee which elective courses are most appropriate for the program of study.

Responsible Conduct of Research and Thesis requirements (6cr minimum/9cr maximum) :

Doctoral students must register for a minimum of 6 Graduate thesis/research credits (ANT 699), but no more than 9 may count toward the degree. Students will be graded with a pass (p) fail (f) or incomplete (i). Also, the Graduate School requires all students to take a one credit hour course to fulfill the Responsible Conduct of Research Requirement prior to conducting research (unless this requirement is fulfilled by a methods class approved to fulfill the RCR requirement) and before registering for a 4th thesis credit. This credit may be substituted for one of the 6 required thesis/dissertation credits. For more information visit http://www.umaine.edu/graduate/responsible-conduct-research

Back to Graduate Programs

  • Centers and Research Programs
  • Prospective Students

Academic Opportunities

Internships and career development.

  • Community and Support
  • Graduate Studies
  • Ph.D. Program
  • M.A.A. Program
  • M.A.A./M.H.P. Dual Degree
  • M.P.S. CHRM
  • Certificate Programs
  • Funding Options
  • Graduate Student Resources

Environment

Woods Hall

Anthropology of Environment focuses on the anthropological assessment of environmental issues, the management of natural resources and the study of biological, cultural and behavioral factors as they impinge upon our understanding of the environment and our ability to respond to environmentally based opportunities, problems, and crises.

Ecological and Environmental Anthropology

Ecological and environmental anthropology focuses on the anthropological assessment of environmental issues, the management of natural resources and the study of biological, cultural and behavioral factors as they impinge upon our understanding of the environment and our ability to respond to environmentally based opportunities, problems, and crises.

The program in Ecological and Environmental Anthropology is designed to appeal to students who are interested in gaining a strong theoretical foundation and instruction in empirical analysis of a range of ecological and environmental issues.

Our interdisciplinary focus on the environment seeks to raise the analytic rigor offered to students, challenging them to develop robust theoretical and empirical skills to act on contemporary environmental challenges.

PROGRAMS OF STUDY

Bachelor's Degrees (BA or BS)

The Department of Anthropology offers both a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree and a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree. The BS degree is more specialized and requires more math and science courses. Both degrees offer a strong foundation on which to build a professional career.

Master's Degree (MAA)

The Master of Applied Anthropology (MAA) is designed for students interested in careers outside of academia and for those who plan on continuing to a Ph.D. The program requires coursework in core classes ' an internship, and specialized courses in medical anthropology & global health.

Doctoral Degree (PhD)

The focus of the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) program is theoretical and methodological advancement and to direct original research, with the aim of improving anthropological practices and to contribute to the value and usefulness of the discipline. Doctoral students are prepared for research and development careers as well as for academic careers.

COURSE LIST

Foundational Knowledge

  • ANTH222: Introduction to Ecological and Evolutionary Anthropology
  • ANTH322: Method & Theory in Ecological Anthropology
  • ANTH722: Ecological Anthropology
  • ANTH266: Changing Climate, Changing Cultures
  • ANTH341/641: Introduction to Zooarchaeology
  • ANTH450/650: Environmental Anthropology
  • ANTH451/651: Environmental Archaeology
  • ANTH452/652: Anthropology of Climate Change
  • ANTH453/653: Archaeology of Modern Cities
  • ANTH456/656: Conservation and Indigenous People in South America
  • ANTH462/662: Amazon Through Film
  • ANTH467/667: Researching Environment and Culture
  • ANTH469P: Culture, Cognition & Environment

Beyond required coursework, students have many opportunities to expand their learning: field schools, research with faculty, teaching assistantships, internships, independent studies, and study abroad programs.

The program faculty is committed to assisting students in identifying internship and career development opportunities that integrate an ecological/environmental anthropology focus with their own environmental interests. In the past, students have completed internships with various governmental, non-governmental, and private organizations in the nation’s capital and beyond.

PROGRAM FACULTY

  • Expertise:  Ethnoecology, common-pool resources, research design and methods, social network analysis

George Hambrecht

Expertise : zooarchaeology, dynamics between humans and natural systems

Kathryn Lafrenz Samuels

Expertise : climate change, energy resources, international development, cultural heritage

Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman

Expertise : Native Americans and European colonization, zooarchaeology

Jen Shaffer

Expertise : human-environmental interactions, historical ecology, indigenous knowledge, rural livelihoods, conservation, climate change adaptation and resilience, Southern and Eastern Africa.

CONTACT US:

Erik Hanson

Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies Program

301-405-1436

ehanson [at] umd [dot] edu

Nadine Dangerfield

Assistant Director of Graduate Studies

301-405-4 737

nadine [at] umd [dot] edu

Person with compass as earring

Login / Logout

  • OU Homepage
  • The University of Oklahoma

Graduate Program

Interlocking OU, Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Anthropology, The University of Oklahoma website wordmark.

Graduate Anthropology Program Overview

picture of a man in a laboratory

Anthropology has been taught at the University of Oklahoma since 1905 and became its own department in 1927. Celebrated faculty like Morris Opler and Robert Bell established the Department as a leader in the scholarly study of Native North America. In addition to a continued focus on Native North America with research specilizations in the southwest, southeast, and plains of North America, the Department maintains a stong emphasis on Latin America, complemented by individual faculty interests in Africa, Asia, and Europe.

Graduate students receive rigorous training in the four sub-fields of anthropology: sociocultural, archaeological, biological, and linguistic.  

With twenty-seven full-time professors and about fifty graduate students, graduate students receive personalized attention from faculty mentors while benefitting from the resources of a large research university. The program pages below detail specific relationships and opportunities at internal and external institutions. Our graduates have been successful in securing tenure-track academic jobs as well as positions in cultural resource management, museums, and government agencies.  Individual faculty  are happy to provide more information on their research and on the anthropology graduate program as it relates to your subdiscipline of interest.

Financial support usually consists of half-time graduate assistantships, typically as a grader for an undergraduate class or research assistant for a faculty member. Ph.D. and advanced M.A. students may teach their own classes with opportunities for both in-person and online formats. We fund M.A. students for a maximum of two years and doctoral students for a maximum of four years beyond the M.A. degree. Our students have also been successful in obtaining external funding. For information on tuition and fees, visit the  Bursar's Office .

Back to top  

Degrees & Courses

We offer an M.A. in Anthropology, an M.A. in Anthropology with a concentration in Linguistics, an M.A. in Anthropology with a concentration in Socio-Cultural Anthropology, an M.A. in Applied Medical Anthropology (non-thesis) and an accelerated BA in Anthropology/MA in Anthropology with a concentration in Socio-Cultural Anthropology. We currently offer a PhD in Anthropology with concentrations in Archaeology, Socio-Cultural Anthropology, Linguistic Anthropology, and Human Health and Biology (HHB). Archaeology concentration students without an M.A. and HHB students applying on an M.A. terminal track or as a precursor to a Ph.D. in HHB degree should apply to the M.A. in Anthropology.

  Graduate Degrees

  Graduate Courses

Graduate Student Handbook

The Anthropology Graduate Student Handbook is an invaluable tool for MA and PhD students and their advisors, as well as prospective students. It provides a helpful roadmap for the details and requirements of each degree program.

Anthropology Graduate Student Handbook (pdf)

Graduate Program Requirements

Required courses, [# hours]; total = 30 credit hours

A student must take ANTH 5001 Professionalization in Anthropology [1 credit]

  • ANTH 5223 Foundations of Social Thought (core) [3 credits]
  • ANTH 5363 Linguistic Anthropology (core) [3 credits]
  • ANTH 6633 Theory and Method in Biological Anthropology (core) [3 credits]
  • ANTH 6713 Archaeological Theory (core) [3 credits]
  • Electives as approved by the Graduate Liaison and Advisor [15-18 credits]
  • Thesis [2-5 credits]

The M.A. in Anthropology requires 30 credit hours, including three core classes, elective seminars, and 2-5 hours of thesis credits. Please see the OU course catalog for a list of anthropology courses.

Anthropology Current & Upcoming Courses

Graduate College Bulletin

MA Anthropology Degree Checksheet

Candidacy and Committee Requirements

Admission to candidacy is required the term before a student expects to defend their thesis (the first Monday in October for Spring graduation; the first Monday in April for Fall graduation). Anthropology has specific candidacy forms available at the Graduate College website .

M.A. committees are composed of three members of the graduate faculty in the Department of Anthropology. Please work with relevant faculty to determine an appropriate committee, keeping in mind that there may be specific limitations you need to consider in forming your committee. When you file a list of your committee members with the department's Graduate Liaison, be sure to verify that any specific limitations have been met.

Required courses, [# hours]; minimum total = 30 credit hours

A student must complete these two core classes in Socio-Cultural Anthropology, and receive at least a B:

  • ANTH 5123 Contemporary Culture Theory [3 credits]
  • ANTH 5223 Foundations of Social Thought [3 credits]

A student also must take one of the following core classes. Usually the Linguistics core is recommended, but the decision about which core class to take should be done in consultation with the student's Advisor. A minimum of a B is required:

  • ANTH 5363 Linguistic Anthropology [3 credits]
  • ANTH 6633 Method and Theory in Biological Anthropology 3 credits]
  • ANTH 6713 Archaeological Theory [3 credits]

A student must complete one of the Research Methods courses:

  • ANTH 5153 Ethnography of Communication [3 credits]
  • ANTH 5213 Ethnographic Methods [3 credits]
  • ANTH 5253 The Anthropology of Communities [3 credits]
  • ANTH 5433 Ethnographic Writing [3 credits]
  • ANTH 5513 Applying Anthropology to Contemporary Social Problems [3 credits]

Finally, the student must take

  • Electives as approved by the Graduate Liaison and Advisor [12-15 credits]

The M.A. in Anthropology with a Concentration in Socio-Cultural Anthropology requires 30 credit hours, including three core classes, a Research Methods class, elective seminars, and 2-5 hours of thesis credits. Please see the OU course catalog for a list of anthropology courses. If you would like to view this specific Degree Sheet, you can find it below. 

MA Sociocultural Anthropology Degree Sheet

The accelerated Anthropology B.A. + M.A. in Sociocultural Anthropology is designed for academically successful undergraduate anthropology majors with an interest in sociocultural anthropology. The combined B.A. + M.A. degrees are designed to be finished in five years, with undergraduate coursework completed at the end of year three of the program. Students accepted into the program begin taking graduate-level coursework during their senior year. Requirements for the B.A. are the same as those of the standard B.A. in Anthropology, with 13 “shared” hours counting towards both the B.A. and M.A. degree requirements. The M.A. degree includes a thesis, giving students an opportunity to conduct original in-depth research.

Required courses, [# hours]; total = 137 credit hours (combined degree)

13 shared hours count as both Graduate and Upper-Division credit. 

Undergraduate Major Requirements (Anthropology coursework) [36 credits total]

Some courses required for the major may also fulfill University General Education and/or Dodge College of Arts & Sciences Requirements.

o   ANTH 2203 Global Cultural Diversity [3 credits]

o   ANTH 2303 General Linguistics [3 credits]

o   ANTH 3113 Principles of Archaeology [3 credits]

o   ANTH 3203 Introduction to Biological Anthropology [3 credits]

o   ANTH 3011 Anthropology Cornerstone I: Introduction to the Major [1 credit]

o   ANTH 3021 Anthropology Cornerstone II: Research and Writing [1 credit]

o   ANTH 3031 Anthropology Cornerstone III: Professionalization [1 credit]

o   ANTH 4113 Anthropology Capstone [3 credits]

o   Anthropology Electives [18 credits]

Graduate Requirements [30 credits total]

All students must take the following core courses, and receive at least a B:

o   ANTH 5001 Professionalization in Anthropology (shared) [1 credit]

o   ANTH 5123 Contemporary Culture Theory (shared) [3 credits]

o   ANTH 5223 Foundations of Social Thought (shared) [3 credits]

o   ANTH 5363 Linguistic Anthropology [3 credits]

o   ANTH 6633 Method and Theory in Biological Anthropology [3 credits]

o   ANTH 6713 Archaeological Theory [3 credits]

Research Methods (3 required credit hours)

Choose from:

o   ANTH 5153 Ethnography of Communication [3 credits]

o   ANTH 5213 Ethnographic Methods [3 credits]

o   ANTH 5253 The Anthropology of Communities [3 credits]

o   ANTH 5433 Ethnographic Writing [3 credits]

o   ANTH 5513 Applying Anthropology to Contemporary Social Problems [3 credits]

Thesis (2-5 credits required)

o   ANTH 5980 Research for Master’s Thesis [2-5 credits]

Electives (12-15 hours required)

Electives coursework is selected in consultation with the student's advisor and committee. No more than 6 hours from outside Anthropology may be applied. (3 hours shared)

Please see the OU course catalog for a list of anthropology courses. If you would like to view this specific Degree Sheet, you can find it below.

BA+MA Sociocultural Anthropology Degree Sheet

  • ANTH 5001 Professionalization in Anthropology [1 credit]
  • ANTH 5053 Morphology [3 credits]
  • ANTH 5153 Ethnography of Communications [3 credits]
  • ANTH 5363 Linguistic Anthropology [3 credits] and receive at least a B.
  • ANTH 5980 Research for Master's Thesis [2-5 credits]

The M.A. in Linguistic Anthropology requires 30 credit hours, including four required classes, 15-18 hours of elective seminar credits, and 2-5 hours of thesis credits. Please see the OU course catalog for a list of anthropology courses. Please consult the Graduate Bulletin, which is updated annually on the Graduate College website, for more general requirements and limitations. If you would like to view this specific Degree Sheet, you can find it below.

MA Linguistic Anthropology Degree Sheet

* This program is Non-Thesis only

Required courses, [# hours]; total = 34 credit hours

A student must take the following Core classes in Anthropology, and receive at least a B:

  • ANTH 5123 Contemporary Culture Theory [3 credits] 
  • ANTH 5223 Foundations of Social Thought [3 credits] 
  • ANTH 6633 Method and Theory in Biological Anthropology [3 credits] 
  • ANTH 6843 Foundations of Bio and Medical Anthropology [3 credits] 
  • Or an alternative as approved by the student's Chair and Committee [3 credits]

A student must also take one of the following Ethnographic Methods courses:

  • ANTH 5213 Ethnographic Methods [3 credits]
  • ANTH 5253 The Anthropology of Communities [3 credits]

A student must complete one of the following Statistical Methods courses:

  • ANTH 4713 Statistical Concepts in Anthropology (taken for Graduate Credit) [3 credits]
  • BSE 5163 Biostatistical Methods I (HSC course)
  • HES 5963 Statistical Applications in Health and Exercise Science [3 credits]
  • SOC 5283 Fundamentals of Sociological Statistics [3 credits]
  • Or alternative as approved by the student's Chair and Committee [3 credits]

A student must also complete one of the following Culture and Health courses:

  • ANTH 5323 The Anthropology of Aging [3 credits]
  • ANTH 5393 Anthropology and the Health of Indigenous People [3 credits]
  • ANTH 5643 Psychiatric Anthropology [3 credits]
  • ANTH 5823 Medical Anthropology [3 credits]

Finally, a student must complete each of the remaining courses:

  • ANTH 5001 Professionalization in Anthropology [1 credit]
  • ANTH 6310 Internship in Applied Medical Anthropology [6 credits]
  • Elective coursework selected in consultation with the student's Chair and Committee [3 credits]

Please see the OU course catalog for a list of anthropology courses. Please consult the Graduate Bulletin, which is updated annually on the Graduate College website, for more general requirements and limitations. If you would like to view this specific Degree Sheet, you can find it below.

MA Applied Anthropology Degree Sheet

There are three tracks in the Ph.D. Program in Anthropology: Archaeology, Human Health and Biology, and Sociocultural and Linguistic Anthropology. Beyond the 30 credits required for the M.A. (including the core classes if they have not been previously taken), these tracks generally require an additional 30 hours of coursework and 30 hours of dissertation research. There are specific additional required courses within each track. Please see the lists below for a summary of this information.

General exams are to be completed in (or immediately following) the last term of formal coursework as detailed on the Advisory Committee Report. Following successful completion of the exams, students complete 30 hours of dissertation research credits.

Ph.D. committees must consist of at least three members of the graduate faculty in the Department of Anthropology (with one from outside the student’s primary subfield) and one faculty member from outside the Department but within the University. Please work with relevant faculty to determine an appropriate committee. There may be specific limitations you need to consider in forming your committee. When you file a list of your committee members with the department's Graduate Liaison, be sure to verify that any specific limitations have been met. Various forms are also available through the  Graduate College website .  A list of current and upcoming courses and individual degree checksheets can be found below.

Sociocultural and Linguistics Ph.D. 

Required courses, [# hours]; total = 90 credit hours

  •  ANTH 5001 Professionalization in Anthropology [1 credit]
  •  ANTH 5223 Foundations of Social Thought (core) [3 credits]
  •  ANTH 5363 Linguistic Anthropology (core) [3 credits]
  •  ANTH 6713 Archaeological Theory (core) [3 credits] OR ANTH 6633 Method and Theory in Biological Anthropology [3 credits]
  • ANTH 6223 Community Engaged Anthropology [3 credits]
  • ANTH 5433 Ethnographic Writing [3 credits]
  • ANTH 5543 Research Design [3 credits]
  • ANTH 6980 Dissertation [29 credits]

Convergence Area

  • At least 9 hours must be taken in a convergent area outside of Anthropology as approved by the student's committee. [9 credits]

Choose one of the following sets of course options:

Sociocultural Anthropology

  • ANTH 5213 Ethnographic Methods OR ANTH 5253 The Anthropology of Communities [3 credits]

Linguistic Anthropology

  • ANTH 5153 Ethnography of Communication [3 credits]

Other Electives

  • Electives as determined by student's committee [27 credits]

Sociocultural and Linguistics Ph.D Degree Checksheet

Archaeology Ph.D.

Required courses [# hours]; total = 90 credit hours

  •  ANTH 5543 Research Design [3 credits]
  •  ANTH 6713 Archaeological Theory (core) [3 credits]
  •  ANTH 6633 Theory and Method in Biological Anthropology (core) [3 credits]
  •  ANTH 6803 Advanced Archaeological Theory and Research [3 credits]
  •  Electives as approved by the Graduate Liaison and Advisor (ANTH 5413 Public archaeology is strongly encouraged) [42 credits]
  •  Dissertation [29 credits]

Archaeology Ph.D. Degree Sheet

Human Health and Biology Ph.D.

  • ANTH 5223 Foundations of Social Thought (core) [3 credits] 
  •  ANTH 6843 Theoretical Foundations of Biological and Medical Anthropology [3 credits]
  •  Two Methods course selected from this list or at advisor’s discretion [6 credits]

Optional Methods classes include: ANTH 5083 Quantitative Methods in Anthropology, ANTH 5153 Ethnography of Communication, ANTH 5213 Ethnographic Methods, ANTH 5253 The Anthropology of Communities, ANTH 5343 Anthropological Demography, ANTH 5423 Introduction to Population Genetics, ANTH 5543 Research Design, ANTH 5593 Spatial Methods and Technologies in Anthropology, BSE 5013 Applications of Microcomputers to Data Analysis, BSE 5163 Biostatistics Methods I, BSE 5173 Biostatistics Methods II, BSE 5663 Analysis of Frequency Data, BSE 6643 Survival Data Analysis, COMM 5313 Qualitative Research Methods

  •  Electives as approved by the Graduate Liaison and Advisor [25-39 credits]
  •  Dissertation [29-43 credits]

Human Health and Biology Ph.D. Degree Checksheet

Undergraduate student graduating and standing with OU Department of Anthropology banner.

Funding and Awards

Graduate students in the Anthropology Department can apply for funding through multiple mechanisms. These are described below.

For information on tuition and fees, you may use the Office of the Bursar tuition estimator . Also, please let the department's Graduate Liaison know if you are a McNair scholar , as the deadline for McNair applicants is earlier than OU's general deadline for applications to the graduate program. For general inquiries about financial aid, please visit the website of OU's Financial Aid Office .

Graduate Teaching and Research Assistantships

The department offers multiple graduate teaching assistantships (GTAships). These are semester-long appointments at 20 hours a week. Some GTAs support faculty who teach large courses; others teach online or face-to-face classes. GTAships are awarded competitively using information from the graduate applications and annual evaluations. The tuition waivers that accompany graduate assistantship awards are described here .

Please contact individual faculty members about the potential for grant funded research assistantships.

Research and Travel Awards

The Anthropology Department offers several awards for graduate student research and travel. These are awarded competitively, with applications due on October 1 and March 1 annually . To apply, download and fill out the Anthropology Scholarship Form. Students can use those funds to support travel that has already occurred. More information about these awards is given below. We expect students who apply for departmental research and travel funds to also apply for funds from one of the following: the Graduate College , the Graduate Student Senate , and/or the College of Arts and Sciences .

Examples of travel or research for which students may apply for support include:

  • Travel to present research at a conference;
  • Funds for a significant component of a research project, for example, travel or material expenses 
  • Funds to seed research or collect pilot data 

Awardees must work with the department staff assistant before any travel is arranged to be certain that university requirements are met.

Morris E. Opler Memorial Scholarships

Graduate students may apply for an Opler scholarship. Lucille Ritter Opler established this endowed fund in memory of her husband, Dr. Morris E. Opler, to provide scholarships to deserving anthropology students at the University of Oklahoma. Morris Opler was a leading scholar of Native North America. A specialist on Apachean people, he authored numerous articles in scholarly journals and wrote several books on the culture and history of the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, and Plains Apache (Kiowa Apache). Dr. Opler was a member of the University of Oklahoma Department of Anthropology faculty for nearly two decades, having served here after a distinguished teaching and research career at Cornell University. Much respected for his knowledge and teaching ability, he retired as Professor Emeritus from the University of Oklahoma in 1977 and passed away in 1996. Among his many honors, Dr. Opler was past President of the American Anthropological Association.

Rain Vehik Award

The Rain Vehik Memorial Fund honors archaeologist Dr. Rain Vehik. Dr. Vehik had a long and productive career in Plains archaeology that included positions at the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse, the University of North Dakota, and in Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, he served as head of the Archaeological Research and Management Center, worked with the Oklahoma Archeological Survey, and taught for the OU Department of Anthropology. The Rain Vehik Award offers funds to students to participate in scholarly conferences and workshops. Higher priority is given to students attending the annual Plains Anthropological Conference. This award is open to both graduate and undergraduate students. Each student is eligible for only one award per academic year.

Gilman-Minnis Scholarship in Archaeology

The Gilman-Minnis Scholarship in Archaeology was estalished by Dr. Patricia Gilman and Dr. Paul Minnis. Drs. Gilman and Minnis were faculty in the OU Department of Anthropology for many years, retiring in 2015. This scholarship offers funds to support archaeology graduate students' research projects. Typically, these funds are awarded only in the spring.

Anthropology Graduate Student Association (AGSA)

AGSA (pronounced /ægsə/) brings together Anthropology graduate students for the purpose of aiding in their professional development within the discipline. AGSA's Speakers Bureau invites scholars to give public lectures related to the interests of the department and conducts fundraisers to be able to afford these events. AGSA also coordinates professional development workshops with graduate students and faculty on topics of interest to current graduate students.  To learn more about current graduate students in Anthropology at OU, the organization, and events check out the AGSA website .  If you have any questions about AGSA, please e-mail one of our officers.

Applying to the Anthropology Graduate Program

The Anthropology department welcomes applications from students with bachelor’s degrees in any field. However, we encourage applicants to gain exposure to all of the subfields of anthropology . Students with a master’s degree from another institution may transfer up to 30 credit hours toward a Ph.D. degree. Students are encouraged to use the Office of the Bursar tuition and fee estimator for cost information. Applicants are not required to take the GRE. If you have taken it, please do not send us your scores, as they will be redacted from your application. Please contact the Graduate Liaison, Matthew Pailes ( [email protected] ), with any questions concerning this. Most important in the decisions for admission are the undergraduate transcript, the statement of purpose, and the two letters of recommendation. The department requires a single writing sample, which needs to be sole authored by the applicant. This could be an essay, term paper, seminar paper, thesis, or article, and should be related to anthropology or associated field.

Faculty look for an appropriate fit between the applicants’ intellectual interests and the research strengths of the department. To that end, we require that applicants contact potential faculty advisors before submitting their completed applications. 

Not all faculty members can chair graduate student committees. Graduate students (current and applying) should check faculty members' Graduate Faculty Appointment Status and adhere to Graduate College and department guidelines when assembling their committees.

The University of Oklahoma uses an integrated electronic application, available here , for its graduate programs. The Department admits applicants once a year to start in the Fall Term. Our next deadline is December 15, 2023. If you are a McNair scholar, please let us know promptly, as the deadline for McNair applicants is earlier than the OU graduate deadline.

Direct any questions to the  Graduate Liaison .

To apply to the graduate program, please visit the Graduate College webpage:

Graduate Degree Application  

OU

  • Accessibility
  • Sustainability
  • OU Job Search
  • Legal Notices
  • Resources and Offices
  • OU Report It!

Sarah E. Vaughn

phd in environmental anthropology

Special Interests

Additional links.

  • Climate Change topic page
  • Historical Anthropology and Archaeology topic page
  • Race and Ethnicity topic page
  • Sociocultural Anthropology topic page

Sarah E. Vaughn is an Associate Professor of Anthropology working at the intersection of environmental anthropology, critical social theory, and science and technology studies.   She received her B.A. in 2006 from Cornell University, majoring as a College Scholar with a focus in Anthropology, Sociology, and Inequality Studies.  She was awarded a Ph.D. in 2013 from the Department of Anthropology, Columbia University. She is affiliated with the Center for Science, Technology and Medicine, The Program in Critical Theory, and the Program in Development Engineering.

Vaughn’s research agenda entails developing an ethnographic approach and critical social theory of climate adaptation. This research has primarily focused on Guyana and Bermuda. She is particularly interested in the way climate adaptation addresses the politics of potentiality in cultures of engineering, wetlands and coastal-scapes, and historical narratives of settlement. Her research is based around two questions: 1) How do people imagine and confront their vulnerability to climate change? 2) How does technology mediate people’s experiences of climate change and valuation of environments? She takes a posthumanist and new materialist perspective on climate adaptation to address these questions. More broadly, she is interested in the ways technology has become an important, and at times taken for granted, object of intervention in climate adaptation projects.

Vaughn’s early research addressed these concerns by examining the social networks of accountability that inform climate adaptation projects. Her first book Engineering Vulnerability: In Pursuit of Climate Adaptation(link is external)(link is external). (2022), examines climate adaptation against the backdrop of ongoing processes of settler colonialism and the global climate change initiatives that seek to intervene in the lives of the world’s most vulnerable. Engineering Vulnerability has been awarded the Inaugural Duke University Press Scholars of Color First Book Award (2021) and the American Anthropological Association’s 2022 Julian Steward Award.

Vaughn’s interests in technological innovation and climate adaptation have informed her second book project, After 1.5˚C: Essays on Technological Worldmaking and Climate Change (in preparation) which asks what technology offers and does for mapping the current conditions of crisis brought on by climate change. And her other ongoing research project, Cultivating an Environmental Spirit: Finance, Climate Change, and Ethics in Bermuda explores how the reinsurance industry has become a critical site of expertise for the data-driven accounting of climate change. This research is supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Archeological and Ethnographic Fieldwork Grant (2022-2024).

Vaughn’s research and writing have been supported by the Social Science Research Council, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton), the National Endowment for the Humanities, among others. During the 2024-2025 academic year she is the Katherine Hampson Bessell Fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

Recent descriptions of my work can be found here:

“ Engineering Vulnerability: In Pursuit of Climate Adaptation  in conversation with Archit Guha.”  New Books Network ,  https://newbooksnetwork.com/engineering-vulnerability

“Under the Rubric: Engineering Ecologies, with Alice Rudge and Sarah E. Vaughn.”  Comparative Studies in Society and History   Online ,  https://cssh.lsa.umich.edu/category/under-the-rubric/(link is external)(link is external) ].

“10 Questions for Sarah E. Vaughn.”  Massachusetts Review. A ccess,  https://www.massreview.org/blog/10%20Questions(link is external)(link is external)(link is external)

"Spotlight/Ideas." Institute for Advanced Study,  https://www.ias.edu/ideas/scholar-spotlight-sarah-e-vaughn(link is external)(link is external)

“Intersectional Ecologies.” Cultures of Energy Podcast (Episode 205),  https://cenhs.libsyn.com/205-intersectional-ecologies(link is external)(link is external)(link is external)

Frequently Taught Courses:

Undergraduate:

Black Atlantic Environments

Climate Change and the Senses

Nature and Society: Anthropological Approaches

Anthropology of Carbon

Environmental Ethnographies

Technological Selves and Sociotechnical Systems

Representative Publications

2024. “The Making of Caribbean Approaches to Climate Adaptation.”   Current History  (123)850: 63-8.

2024. “Unavoidable Slips: Settler Colonialism and Terra Nullius in the Wake of Climate Adaptation.”   Critical Inquiry  50(3): 494-516.

2023. “The Morality of Markets: Stigma and Insurance in Climate Governance.”  Public Culture  35(3): 393-403.

2023.  "The Limits to Computational Growth: Digital Databases and Climate Change in the Caribbean."   NatureCulture  6: 1-27.

2022. “Erosion by Design: Rethinking Innovation, Sea Defense, and Credibility in Guyana.”   Comparative Studies in Society and History  64(4): 1-29.

2022. “Ecotourism’s Ethics: Self-Organization and Care in Urban Guyana.”   Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space  5(2): 976-994.

2021. “On Watermarks and Fakes.”   The Massachusetts Review: A Quarterly of Literature, the Arts, and Public Affairs  Winter: 823-833.  Special Issue, “Climate Crisis,” edited by Roy Scranton.

Vaughn, Sarah E. and Daniel Fischer. 2021. “Introduction: Witnessing Environments.”  Special Section, “Witnessing Environments.”   Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory  11(2): 387-394.

2021. “Gridlock: Vigilance and Early Warning in the Shadow of Climate Change.”   Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory  11(2): 506-520.

Vaughn, Sarah E., Bridget Guarasci, and Amelia Moore. 2021. “Intersectional Ecologies: Reimagining Anthropology and Environment.”   Annual Review of Anthropology  50: 275-290.

2021. "The Aesthetics and Multiple Origin Stories of Climate Activism."  Forum in Social Anthropology  29(1): 213-15.

Baker, Janelle, Paulla Ebron, Rosa Ficek, Karen Ho, Renya Ramirez, Zoe Todd, Anna Tsing, and Sarah E. Vaughn.  2020. "The Snarled Lines of Justice."   Orion: People and Nature  (Winter): 14-21.

2020. “Caribbean Technological Thought and Climate Adaptation.”  Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism  24(2(62)): 110-121.

2019. [Reprint].  "Disappearing Mangroves: The Epistemic Politics of Climate Adaptation in Guyana."  déjà lu  32(2): 441-467.

2018.  "The Political Economy of Regions: Climate Change and Dams in Guyana."  Radical History Review  131: 105-125.

2017.  "Imagining the Ordinary in Participatory Climate Adaptation."  Weather, Climate, and Society  9(3): 533-543.

2017. "Disappearing Mangroves: The Epistemic Politics of Climate Adaptation in Guyana."   Cultural Anthropology  32(2): 441-467.

2012.  "Reconstructing the Citizen: Disaster, Citizenship, and Expertise in Racial Guyana."   Critique of Anthropology  32(4): 359-386.

            Book Chapters

Forthcoming [Invited].  “Thought Experiments with Technology: Climate Adaptation and Critical Humanism of/for the Global South.”  In  Oxford Handbook of the Global South , edited by Christopher Lee, Ann Mahler, and Monica Popescu.  Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Forthcoming [Invited].  “On Disinheritance, Intersectionality, and Environment: Zora Neale Hurston’s Florida Writers’ Project Fieldnotes . ”   In  Handbook to Feminist Anthropology , edited by Pamela Geller. Oxford University Press.

2023. Baker, Janelle and Rosa Ficek [first authors], Paulla Ebron, Karen Ho, Renya Ramirez, Zoe Todd, Anna Tsing, and Sarah E. Vaughn [et al., equal authorship].  “From Devastation to Wonder.”  In  The Long 2020 , edited by Richard Grusin and Maureen Ryan, pp. 274-288.  Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

2019.  "Vulnerability." In  Anthropocene Unseen: A Lexicon , edited by Cymene Howe and Anand Pandian, pp. 517-521.  New York: Punctum Books.     

2019.  "Inundated with Facts: Flooding and the Knowledge Economies of Climate Adaptation in Guyana."  In  Unmasking the State: Politics, Society, and Economy in Guyana 1992-2015 , edited by Arif Bulkan and D. Alissa Trotz, pp. 479-500.  Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers.  

2022. Engineering Vulnerability: In Pursuit of Climate Adaptation  (Duke University Press).

X

UCL Anthropology

Environmental Anthropology MSc (formerly Anthropology, Environment and Development MSc)

Hear from our students.

Menu

Drawing on academic expertise in human ecology, social anthropology, political ecology, conservation science, and socio-ecological systems, this MSc equips graduates with an interdisciplinary perspective on topics relating to global environmental change, sustainable development, biodiversity conservation and social justice. Many of our graduates go on to become leaders in academic, international agency, government and third sector organisations.  

“ The opportunity to conduct independent fieldwork (examining the use of communal forests in rural France) was challenging but immensely rewarding. George Smith, AED MSc, 2018-19
  • Become part of the  Human Ecology Research Group (HERG), whose pioneering work in integrating social and natural science approaches to address environmental issues is internationally recognised. HERG runs a weekly term-time seminar series , which attracts world-leading academics as speakers.
  • Conservation Science and Practice: field trip in the Amazon Forest , including a 5-day field trip in the Rio Negro region, Amazon Forest, Brazil. Students will be based on a riverboat and visit different Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) and explore conservation and development projects operating in the region.
  • Multispecies Ethnography in the Anthropocene  introduces a range of anthropological ideas and approaches in the study of the current period of accelerated environmental change termed the Anthropocene and explores attempts to incorporate nonhuman agents (animals, plants, fungi, microbes etc.) into anthropological analysis.

Savanna

More information and apply

  • Sign up to our newsletter

Stay in touch

Register your interest in studying the Environmental Anthropology MSc and receive notice of open days, events and more.

Register your interest

View upcoming open days  

Programme convenor Emily Woodhouse

London, Bloomsbury

IMAGES

  1. What is Environmental Anthropology

    phd in environmental anthropology

  2. PPT

    phd in environmental anthropology

  3. (PDF) Theory and Practice in Environmental Anthropology

    phd in environmental anthropology

  4. Environmental Anthropology (Routledge Studies in: 9781138952713

    phd in environmental anthropology

  5. Environmental Anthropology and Interdisciplinary Teaching

    phd in environmental anthropology

  6. PHD POSITIONS: MEDICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ANTHROPOLOGY FOR EAST AFRICA

    phd in environmental anthropology

VIDEO

  1. Convocation 2024

  2. Environmental Anthropology

  3. What is Environmental anthropology?

  4. Kinship, Relatedness and Multi-Species Ethnography in India: An Interview with Radhika Govindrajan

  5. Lecture 24-25: "Environmental Anthropology"

  6. Convocation 2024

COMMENTS

  1. Combined Ph.D. in Anthropology and Environment

    Combined Ph.D. in Anthropology and Environment. The Combined Ph.D. Program in Anthropology and Environment blends the disciplinary and theoretical strengths of the Anthropology Department with the interdisciplinary and theory-and-practice strengths of the School of the Environment. Students in this program frequently work on dissertation ...

  2. Combined Doctoral Degree with Anthropology

    The School of Environment (YSE)/Anthropology combined doctoral degree combines the disciplinary identity and strengths of the Anthropology Department with the inter-disciplinary character and possibilities of YSE, especially in terms of bridging the social and natural sciences. It combines the strengths in ecological and environmental studies ...

  3. Environmental Anthropology

    Environmental Anthropology track focuses on the dynamic relationship between the human organism and its natural and social environment. Coursework and research opportunities associated with the track provides students with a fundamental theoretical and methodological foundation for investigating processes that shape temporal and spatial distributions and interactions of people, land, and the ...

  4. Environmental Anthropology

    Environmental Anthropology. Environmental anthropology brings together faculty with specialties in the anthropology of science, archeology, heritage studies, medical anthropology, political ecology, and political economy. Faculty are broadly concerned with the ways that people grapple with political conditions that influence ideas and tensions ...

  5. Combined Ph.D. in Anthropology and Environment

    Department of Anthropology 10 Sachem Street New Haven, CT 06511-3707 +1 203.432.3700

  6. Environmental Anthropology

    Environmental Anthropology is a thematic concentration that investigates how human societies create and change geologies and climates up to a planetary scale, and the ways that anthropologists have questioned the division between cultures and nature. Students may choose to study topics from contemporary society to the impact of environmental change over long spans of time.

  7. Environmental Social Science, PhD

    Program Description. Degree Awarded: PHD Environmental Social Science. The PhD program in environmental social science is one of the few doctoral degree programs in the U.S. that draw on the premise that reducing human impacts and developing more sustainable environmental practices are difficult, if not impossible, to achieve without a focus on the social dynamics of environmental issues using ...

  8. Environmental Anthropology

    Introduction. Environmental Anthropology includes analysis of the contemporary world from a cultural and biological perspective, and the deep time depth of the archaeological record. Recent developments, both in the academy and in the world, make such an approach essential to the training of a new generation of students and citizens.

  9. PhD in Anthropology

    The Anthropology PhD program at The University of Texas at San Antonio prepares leading professionals for applied fields, academic research and teaching careers. ... At base, therefore, environmental anthropology is an applied social science, expressly directing anthropological knowledge toward the resolution of real-world problems.

  10. Doctoral Degree Program < Yale University

    The purpose of the degree is threefold: it combines (1) the disciplinary identity and strengths of the Anthropology department with the interdisciplinary character and possibilities of YSE, especially in terms of bridging the social and natural sciences; (2) the strengths in ecological and environmental studies of YSE with the social science ...

  11. Graduate Program

    The Anthropology graduate program provides students with excellent training in theory and methods, enabling them to pursue an advanced graduate degree in many subfields of Anthropology, including archaeology, ecology, environmental anthropology, evolution, linguistic, medical anthropology, political economy, science and technology, and sociocultural anthropology.

  12. Ecology, Evolution, Environment & Society (EEES)

    The Department of Anthropology offers a PhD through the interdisciplinary program in Ecology, Evolution, Environment & Society (EEES). EEES is a new vision for scholarship, education, and service focused on understanding the complexities of human-environment interaction at different spatial and temporal scales.

  13. Environmental Anthropology

    Environmental anthropology investigates human relations with the environment. It examines how we shape the environments we live in, and how relations with the environment shape culture and social organization. This is an interdisciplinary, collaborative endeavor spanning the subdisciplines of anthropology and intersecting environmental research ...

  14. Environment

    PhD in Anthropology: Biological Anthropology; MPH/PhD Program; Sociocultural Anthropology. PhD in Anthropology: Sociocultural Anthropology ... the engtanglement of religion and everyday environmental practices in Indonesia. Diss. of U of Washington. 2019. Griffin, P. Joshua. Breathing Room: Climate Displacement, Biopolitics, and Indigenous ...

  15. Ethnobiology / Environmental Anthropology

    At the graduate level we offer seminars in Zooarchaeology; Paleoethnobotany; and, Settlement and Agro-Pastoralism; and we are developing a seminar in Ecological Anthropology and Ethnobiology / Environmental Anthropology and a course entitled Feeding the World which looks at global farming systems in a cross-disciplinary perspective.

  16. Ecological and Environmental Anthropology

    Ecological and environmental anthropology at the University of Georgia examines the past and present reciprocal relationship between humans and the natural world. Our archaeological, biological, and cultural anthropology investigations yield critical knowledge of diverse dimensions of the human experience that we then apply in socially relevant ...

  17. Environmental anthropology

    Environmental anthropology is a sub-discipline of anthropology that examines the complex relationships between humans and the environments which they inhabit. [1] This takes many shapes and forms, whether it be examining the hunting/gathering patterns of humans tens of thousands of years ago, archaeological investigations of early agriculturalists and their impact on deforestation or soil ...

  18. Doctor of Philosophy

    Tracking Environmental and Infrastructure Damage in Ukraine. As co-leader of Black Marble, NASA's light dataset, Eleanor Stokes '18 PhD is currently tracking the effects of Russian military strikes on Ukraine's infrastructure and climate-induced natural disasters across the world. NASA's Black Marble science team, which uses data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite aboard ...

  19. ANTHROPOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY DOCTORAL PROGRAM

    The PhD program in Anthropology and Environmental Policy centers on understanding human society and culture in cross-cultural perspective and their pivotal role in implementing successful environmental policy. The program engages students in a multi-disciplinary framework bridging environmental sciences and policy while focusing on the ...

  20. Environment

    301-405-4 737. [email protected]. Anthropology of Environment focuses on the anthropological assessment of environmental issues, the management of natural resources and the study of biological, cultural and behavioral factors as they impinge upon our understanding of the environment and our ability to respond to environmentally based opportunities ...

  21. Graduate Program

    We currently offer a PhD in Anthropology with concentrations in Archaeology, Socio-Cultural Anthropology, Linguistic Anthropology, and Human Health and Biology (HHB). Archaeology concentration students without an M.A. and HHB students applying on an M.A. terminal track or as a precursor to a Ph.D. in HHB degree should apply to the M.A. in ...

  22. Sarah E. Vaughn

    Research. Sarah E. Vaughn is an Associate Professor of Anthropology working at the intersection of environmental anthropology, critical social theory, and science and technology studies. She received her B.A. in 2006 from Cornell University, majoring as a College Scholar with a focus in Anthropology, Sociology, and Inequality Studies.

  23. Environmental Anthropology MSc

    The MSc in Environmental Anthropology integrates natural and social science approaches to address issues of sustainability and resilience in the Anthropocene. It serves as a foundation for higher level research and professional work, offering a rare opportunity to learn in an interdisciplinary setting with staff who collaborate with outside organisations while also pursuing

  24. Environmental Anthropology MSc (formerly Anthropology ...

    About. Drawing on academic expertise in human ecology, social anthropology, political ecology, conservation science, and socio-ecological systems, this MSc equips graduates with an interdisciplinary perspective on topics relating to global environmental change, sustainable development, biodiversity conservation and social justice.