Letter from the Chair

Greetings from Old McMillan Hall. We were very gratified by the positive response to our first anthropology newsletter last summer. Many of you wrote with news of your professional and personal lives, and we hope you will continue to stay in touch. Our Alumni Connections section is growing as we are able to link members of our community around the world. If you are not listed, we hope you will send us your information for subsequent issues.

This issue, we profile alumnus Barry Kozloff, a 1969 graduate who founded Selection Research International, a group of international management consultants specializing in staff assessment and selection for international placement. We also include excerpts of letters from alumna Robyn d'Avignon, AB 2006, currently a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal.

Among the updates from the department, I am delighted to introduce two new faculty members whose research is detailed in the newsletter. Derek Pardue, who received his doctorate in 2004 from the University of Illinois, is a cultural anthropologist and ethnomusicologist whose research deals with youth culture in Brazil. Herman Pontzer, who received his doctorate in 2006 from Harvard University, is a physical anthropologist who works on bioenergetics and evolution.

Two new staff members joined the department this year, one a past and one a current Washington University anthropology student. Kirsten Jacobsen, AB 1988, MFA 2001, returned to our department to coordinate the Medicine and Society program and to work with our undergraduates. Carrie Asmar-O'Guin, our department secretary, is working on her anthropology degree in University College. You can find contact information for our faculty and staff on the department web site at http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~anthro/. We are always glad to hear from you.

Our department continues to thrive and attract excellent students. The medical anthropology program is growing, and we will be adding additional faculty in that area in the future. Our graduate program was highly rated in an index compiled by Academic Analytics and published in the January 12, 2007, issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. Our undergraduate program grew to 300 majors in the 2006–07 academic year. We have included information about the 2006 and 2007 senior honors projects, as well as other triumphs of our undergraduate and graduate students. See the articles on major Danielle Matilsky's medical anthropology work on a nutrition project in Malawi and graduate student Catrina Adams' archaeological research in the Orkney Islands.

The faculty continue to be active around the world, with ongoing fieldwork in Europe, East and Central Asia, Africa, Central and South America, the Middle East, and the United States. We hope you will visit the department web site to learn more about current research activities. This newsletter includes a profile of Glenn Stone, cultural anthropologist and senior faculty member, who works on agriculture and issues surrounding genetically modified crops. He recently led a group of undergraduates in a summer study–abroad program in rural Andra Pradesh, India.

Enjoy the newsletter, and please keep in touch. You can reach us by contacting Kathleen Cook at hkcook@wustl.edu or by using the link, Submit a Class Note. We hope you will let us know where you are and what you are doing, including any personal news you would like to share with your fellow alumni.

Best wishes in the coming academic year.

Richard J. Smith
Ralph E. Morrow Distinguished University Professor and Chair of Anthropology