Introduction to the Graduate Anthropology Program

An important part of choosing a graduate school is finding a program that has faculty members who share your research interests and who can help guide you in designing and conducting original research that is stimulating and rewarding. To assist you in this process, we have put together a booklet describing the research interests of our faculty; request this booklet from Carrie. The anthropology faculty at Washington University is well balanced among three subdisciplines of archaeology, sociocultural anthropology and physical anthropology. Their diverse, yet overlapping, research interests are one of the real strengths of our department, providing a productive network of research expertise in which you may thrive.

The graduate program in anthropology at Washington University is a Ph.D. program designed to train scholars (students are not admitted for a terminal master's degree). We maintain very small class sizes and a high level of support in order to train students who will be highly competitive in the academic job market.

Students applying from within the United States will find it advantageous to apply before December 15, well in advance of the departmental deadline for applicants of January 1. Applicants who have received a degree from an institution where all instruction is not given in English must submit TOEFL scores.

Completed applications should be sent to the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. All other information such as transcripts, GRE scores, and letters of recommendation - should be sent to the department.

After reviewing the research interests of our faculty, please feel free to contact us. If you are excited about the research taking place here at Washington University, we urge you to apply or, if possible, to visit our campus. If you have any questions, please telephone us at (314) 935-5252.

The Faculty and Research Facilities

Program strengths in archaeology include the origins of agriculture and pastoralism; ethnoarchaeology; paleoethnobotany; zooarchaeology; GIS; and the prehistory of North America, Africa, and South America.

The sociocultural subfield offers research strengths is a wide variety of topics as explained here. The department has recently expanded its program for training and research in medical anthropology, and encourages applications from qualified students. Strong links with academic and clinical programs at the University's School of Medicine permit the development of integrated medical anthropology research projects, which draw upon the resources of the University and the community at-large.

The physical anthropologists have a program emphasis in human and primate evolution, the ecology and behavior of modern primates, and quantitative studies of morphology and genetics, with ongoing paleontological, behavioral, and ecological field research in Africa, Madagascar, Europe, and South America.

Interdisciplinary research is enhanced by the involvement of anthropology faculty in several on-campus institutes and programs, including Applied Statistics & Computation, the Center in Political Economy, the Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences, African & Afro-American Studies, Environmental Studies, Women & Gender Studies, Archaeology, and the Division of Infectious Diseases. The department also has close research ties to the School of Medicine, the Missouri Botanical Garden (one of the world's great herbaria), and the Saint Louis Zoo.

All graduate students are provided with office space in McMillan Hall, the anthropology building, with wireless internet access. Seven large computer labs are conveniently located in nearby buildings, providing free access to a rich variety of equipment and services complete with reference areas and consultants. The library system, which houses more than 3.5 million volumes and 17,500 periodicals, is equipped with computerized catalogs, periodical indexes, and database searching.