Department of Anthropology

NSF grant to help students present their research on education among Guatemala's Maya people

Students who spent summer 2007 studying education among the Maya in Guatemala will be able to present and publish their findings, thanks to a $13,816 grant from the National Science Foundation. The grant, obtained by Texas State University-San Marcos Anthropology Professor Dr. Ana Juarez, will enable the students to travel to Memphis, TN, March 25-29 to present scientific papers about their work, at the annual meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology. The students will also co-author a book of essays about their research with Juarez and Dr. Octavio Pimentel, an educational ethnographer and member of the Texas State Anthropology faculty.

Gift establishes the first graduate fellowships in Forensic Anthropology

A gift of $100,000 from Dr. Grady Early, Distinguished Professor of Computer Science Emeritus at Texas State University-San Marcos, has established an endowment for graduate fellowships in forensic anthropology. The Grady G. Early Fellowship in Forensic Anthropology is the first graduate fellowship endowment to be established in the Department of Anthropology. The endowment will provide stipends for several graduate students each year to conduct research projects at Texas State’s new Forensic Research Facility, located at the Freeman Ranch near San Marcos. The first fellowship recipient will be announced in March.

Texas State Forensic Research Facility to locate at Freeman Ranch

Texas State University-San Marcos will locate its planned Forensic Research Facility on the 3,000-acre Freeman Ranch. The facility, which will be an integral part of a graduate program in forensic anthropology at Texas State, will train scientists and assist law enforcement officials in establishing the time of death and the nature of death when bodies are found. It will also provide training in the identification of skeletal and dental remains. Workshops for law enforcement at the facility will include crime scene training, human identification, cadaver dog training and numerous other workshops.

New to the Anthropology Department

Dr. Jon McGee welcomes our newest forensic anthropologist to the Department, Dr. Kate Spradley. Dr. Spradley will begin teaching in Fall Semester, 2008.

Tory Flores is the Department's newest graduate administrative assistant.

More Anthropology Department news