Faculty Highlights

August 2009:

Dr. Arlen F. Chase, Pegasus Professor & Chair, was recently interviewed on Fox news about the Maya 2012 prophecy. Please click here to watch the footage.

June 2009:

Dr. Rosalyn Howard has been featured in a news article entitled: Uncovering St. David's Native Indian Heritage.

June 2009:

Congratulations to Dr. John Schultz for being promoted to Associate Professor effective Fall 2009.

June 2009:

Congratulations to Dr. Tosha Dupras, Associate Chair & Graduate  
Coordinator, on being awarded the Teaching Incentive Program [TIP]  
Award for 2008.

April 2009:

Congratulations to Dr. Sarah (Stacy) Barber on receiving a $7,500 grant for her research project entitled, "Redefining the Ancient State: Early Political Centralization in Coastal Oaxaca, Mexico"

April 2009:

Congratulations to Dr. Joanna Mishtal on receiving a $7,500 grant for her research project entitled, "Understanding Declining Fertility in Poland: Integrating Demographic and Anthropological Methodologies"

April 2009:

Congratulations to Dr. Tosha Dupras, Associate Chair & Graduate Coordinator, for her publication on her research in Egypt being published at the attached link (in German):

 http://derstandard.at/?url=/?id=1237228872170

April 2009:

Congratulations to Ronald Wallace for achieving VPs Emeritus Status. Ronald Wallace, professor emeritus, retired in 2007 after a 32-year career at UCF. One of UCF’s first Anthropology faculty members, he later studied biobehavioral anthropology and neuroanatomy. His recent publications have culminated in his third book, titled “Membrane Microdomain Regulation of Neuron Signaling.” He is an interdisciplinary fellow in the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning. Wallace served as associate chair for the Department of Anthropology, formerly the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, from 2004 until his retirement.

February 2009:

Congratulations to Dr. Tosha Dupras for being awarded the College of Sciences' 2009 Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award

December 2008:

Congratulations to Dr. John Schultz, Associate Professor (effective Fall 09), on being awarded the Teaching Incentive Program Award and the Research Incentive Award for 2008.

December 2008:

Congratulations to Dr. John Schultz for being awarded $231,000 from National Institute of Justice for his project titled "Detecting Buried Remains Using Ground Penetrating Radar

February 2008:

Biology professor Dr. John Weishampel received a NASA Space Archaeology Program & UCF-UF Space Research Initiative grant for $412,000 entitled, "Remote sensing of ancient Maya Land use features at Caracol, Belize related to tropical rainforest structure". Co-PIs Arlen and Diane Chase (UCF-Anthropology). Using canopy-penetrating LiDAR remote sensing, we will simultaneously map new Maya ruins while simultaneously detailing the above forest structure. Thus, we will assess forest recovery patterns in relation to a variety of ancient land use legacies. This is the most extensive use of LiDAR to detect below-canopy archaeological features to date.

February 2008:

Funded proposal: Remote sensing of ancient Maya land use features at Caracol, Belize related to tropical rainforest structures.NASA Space Archaeology Program & UCF-UF Space Research Initiative ($412K) Co-PIs Arlen and Diane Chase (UCF-Anthropology) Using canopy-penetrating LiDAR remote sensing, we will simultaneously map new Maya ruins while simultaneously detailing the above forest structure. Thus, we will assess forest recovery patterns in relation to a variety of ancient land use legacies. This is the most extensive use of LiDAR to detect below-canopy archaeological features to date.

January 2007: Dr. Ty Matejowsky received a UCF In-House research grant to support his research on fast food in the Philippines. His article "SPAM & Fast Food 'Glocalization' in the Philippines" will be coming out in the Spring 2007 edition of the journal, Food & Culture. Additionally, Dr. Matejowsky's book chapter entitled "Global Tastes, Local Contexts: An Ethnographic Account of Fast Food Market Expansion in San Fernando City, the Philippines" was just published in the book, "Fast/Slow Food".

August 2006: Welcome to Mr. Pete Sinelli who joins the anthropology faculty as a fulltime Instructor in the fall of 2006. Mr. Sinelli is currently finishing his Ph.D. at the University of Florida.

August 2006: Welcome to Dr. John Walker who joins the anthropology faculty as an Assistant Professor in the fall of 2006. Dr. Walker, who specializes in archaeology, comes from the University of Pennsylvania

June 2006: Dr. John Walker is featured in the May issue of Science, discussing "Early American Astronomy". Press here to link to this story.

June 2006: Leslie Sue Lieberman, Professor of Anthropology received the prestigious Dragutin Gorjanovic-Kramburger Award from the Croatian Anthropology Society (CAS) for contributions to Croatian anthropology. Gorjanovic-Kramburger discovered the famous Neandertal site of Krapina and was a founder of the CAS.

May 2006:

Congratulations to Dr. Rosalyn Howard who received promotion to Associate Professor and tenure in May, 2006. Dr. Howard was also awarded a Teaching Incentive Award in 2006. The Looking for Angola Project that she is part of received a $10,000 grant from The History Channel for public anthropology programs in the Sarasota and Manatee county schools, and another to conduct underwater archaeology.

May 2005: Joan Morris and Elayne Zorn have been recommended as 2005 CAS Teaching Incentive Program (TIP) award recipients. The TIP program rewards faculty for teaching productivity and excellence. Selection criteria include teaching quality and effectiveness, commitment to instruction, innovation, creativity, and productivity based on a portfolio of assignments and evaluations collected over the previous 4 academic years.

May 2005:

Dr. Elayne Zorn received a sabbatical leave for 2005-2006 to work on a book on culture and ethnonationalism in contemporary Bolivia, and will be doing library research in Gainesville, Pittsburgh and Austin, and ethnographic fieldwork in Bolivia.

May 2005:

Congratulations to Dr. Tosha Dupras who received tenure and promotion in May, 2005.

April 2005:

UCF Honors Outstanding Faculty, Students at Founders- Day 30-Year Service Awards: College of Arts and Sciences: Ron Wallace (Sociology and Anthropology)

April 2005:

Dr. Elayne Zorn was interviewed on the Augustana Public Radio program "About Books" by co-host Faye Clow, of the Bettendorf Public Library Information Center of Augustana College. Dr. Zorn discussed her new book on Andean weaving, Weaving a Future: Tourism, Cloth, and Culture on an Andean Island (University of Iowa Press, 2004). The interview is available on the Internet during April 2005 at http://www.augustana.edu/wvik/listings-aboutbooks.htm.

March 2005: Elayne Zorn was interviewed on the Augustana Public Radio program "About Books" by co-host Faye Clow, of the Bettendorf Public Library Information Center of Augustana College. Zorn discussed her new book on Andean weaving, Weaving a Future: Tourism, Cloth, and Culture on an Andean Island (University of Iowa Press, 2004). The interview is available on the Internet during April 2005 at http://www.augustana.edu/wvik/listings-aboutbooks.htm.

January 2005: A panel of experts, including anthropologist Rosalyn Howard, spoke about their preliminary archeological findings on Angola, on January 28, 2005 at the University of South Florida Sudakoff Auditorium. This event was covered by the Bradenton Herald [ See Press Release ] and WUSF 89.7 FM [ See Press Release ].

January 2005:

Congratulations to Dr. Tosha Dupras who received a Research Incentive Award in 2005.

April 2004:

At the Founder's Day Celebration Drs. Arlen and Diane Chase, for their 20 years of service to UCF and undergraduate Anthropology student Zachary Blair who was one of the top one percent of students in the College of Arts and Sciences.

April 2004:

Dr. Tosha Dupras was awarded the University Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award at the 16th annual Founder's Day Honors Convocation Ceremony held on April 7th. Dr. Dupras was also presented with an award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching for the College of Arts & Sciences.

May 2003:

Congratulations to Dr. Diane Chase who has been selected as one of two Pegasus professors for 2003-04. At the 2003 Founders Day Awards Ceremony, Dr. Diane Chase was presented with the Pegasus Professor Award by Dr. Gary Whitehouse.

January 2003:

Look for Dr. Tosha Dupras on the Discovery Channel.

January 2003:

Dr. Rosalyn Howard has been appointed as the new director for the minor in North American Indian Studies.

June 2002:

Cultural anthropologist Dr. Elayne Zorn carried out ethnographic fieldwork in Peru and Bolivia during July 2002 as part of a long-term project with the Brooklyn Museum of Art, which is preparing to reinstall its spectacular Hall of the Americas. In this photograph Zorn is speaking Quechua (Inca) with indigenous weavers in Pitumarca, Cusco, Peru, interviewing them about how they set up a loom to weave an exceptionally complicated textile technique called discontinuous warp and weft. This technique was perfected more than a thousand years ago by ancient Andean weavers, but it was believed that knowledge of this technique was lost after the Spanish Conquest of Peru in the 16th century. Zorn's research interests focus on contemporary peoples of highland Peru and Bolivia, in the areas of political economy, tourism, weaving, gender, and writing. She teaches undergraduate anthropology courses that include Peoples of the World, Cultures of Latin America, and the Incas, as well as a graduate course on the Contemporary Maya.

January 2001:

Dr. Leslie Sue Lieberman,Professor of Anthropology was elected Chair of the Biological Anthropology Section of the American Anthropological Association.