Alphabetical Department Directory | Department Administration | Faculty Research Interests | Graduate Student Research Interests

A distinctive feature of the Penn Anthropology department is the range and diversity of interests among the people associated with the department--reaching across the standing faculty, the graduate group and adjunct faculty, lecturers and research fellows, emeritus faculty, museum research staff, graduate students, undergraduates and support staff. The interests of these people are exemplified in the brief biographical sketches that are included on the following pages. You may also access individual biographical sketches via the alphabetical department directory.

The standing faculty constitute the intellectual core of the department, distributed across the four major subfields--cultural, linguistic, bio-physical, and archaeological anthropology (though at U. Penn we combine cultural/linguistic anthropology). Each member has one or more world culture area specializations that serves as an empirical focus of their work, and a set of theoretical interests and preoccupations that generate the ongoing discussions in the field of anthropology as a whole. We gladly claim the standing faculty as a world-class group of scholars who are working at the leading edge of research and who are responsible for the curriculum of the department at the undergraduate level and form the core of the graduate group responsible for graduate education.

We believe our undergraduate curriculum matches the very best in the world, and provides our students with the resources they need to compete in government, business, academia, law, the health sciences and other fields where cultural knowledge and knowledge of cultures is critically important.

Graduate education at U. Penn is organized by graduate groups rather than departments. In the Anthropology graduate group our core departmental faculty is supplemented by faculty members from other departments. In addition, several core faculty are jointly appointed as research curators in the University Museum. Thus, at Penn interdisciplinary interests and resources are built into the graduate group instructional fabric. In addition, members of the adjunct faculty add a variety of further interests and skills that supplement the department's work, complemented as well by lecturers and research fellows, further enriching the department. Members of the emeritus faculty stand among the pillars of the field, and lead the train of illustrious ancestors who built U. Penn's department.

One of the most important indices of our department's strength and intellectual vibrancy is the range and diversity of interests among our Ph. D. and Master's level graduate students. Their biographical sketches point to new directions in the field and testify to continued important foundational work. Members of the Museum Library staff, Museum research scientists, and the departmental support staff make important contributions to the well-being of all of us--faculty, students, and staff alike.