Anthropology

See how more than 200 students and faculty came together through 19 interdisciplinary hands-on courses to turn the historic Vaughn home into a living laboratory, unveiling "hidden narratives" of Vanderbilt's and Nashville's past. Read More

Join students and faculty from the Department of Anthropology to learn more about Vanderbilt’s early history through archaeological excavation on the grounds of a service workers’ cabin once located behind the first faculty residences on campus. Ongoing investigations at the Vaughn Home (currently the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities) will be open to the public on Saturday, Oct. 14, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Read More

With colleagues from Meharry Medical College, Tuskegee University and the World Health Organization, T.S. Harvey and Ted Fischer will examine the manifold contributions of the cultural context of health to emerging and persistent health inequalities. Read More

Join “Coffee: Where Science Meets Sips” in the next Lab-to-Table Conversation on Sept. 27. Read More

A $350,000 grant to develop next-generation archaeological mapping technology will let a Vanderbilt-led research team reveal information about the ancient civilizations of the central Andes. Read More

The fellowship program is intended to serve as a pathway and source of mentorship for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars across the Southeastern Conference to prepare them for tenured faculty positions.  This cohort of Vanderbilt scholars will attend the upcoming 2023-24 SEC Emerging Scholars conference Oct. 1–4 at the University of Arkansas.   Read More

Research from Associate Professor of Medical and Linguistic Anthropology T.S. Harvey demonstrates how a disease’s name can have a significant impact on the public’s perception, attitude and behavior toward the disease. Harvey argues that disease names should be selected with careful consideration of their potential impacts on public health from the framing of risk perceptions through the circulation of harmful misinformation. Read More

Vanderbilt professors Ben Tran and Johnathan Metzl will host a panel discussion on gun violence and Asian Americans on Wednesday, Feb. 1, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Sarratt 189. The event is open to the Vanderbilt University community. Read More

At the coffee shop, we are asked to pay more, sometimes a lot more, for “quality.” But how do we determine the quality of a sensory experience? Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Anthropology Ted Fischer’s research examines the quest for quality among always-changing tastes. He discusses it in this Q&A—just in time for International Coffee Day on Oct. 1. Read More

Vanderbilt archaeologist and historical anthropologist Steve Wernke and postdoctoral fellow Giles Morrow are exploring the remains of a 16th-century church high in the Andes Mountains of Peru, all while giving Vanderbilt students a front-row seat to the research using virtual reality, artificial intelligence and geospatial technologies. Read More

A team of Vanderbilt and Vanderbilt University Medical Center faculty are working together to produce a series of children’s science books aimed at fourth grade–level readers. Read More

Jason De León, creator of the "Hostile Terrain 94" exhibit and founder of the Undocumented Migration Project, will give a free lecture on Wednesday, Sept. 29, at 6 p.m. in Sarratt Cinema. A public reception will precede his talk beginning at 5:15 p.m. in Sarratt Gallery. Read More

Vanderbilt University’s Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latinx Studies will host a participatory art installation that aims to raise community awareness about the human side of undocumented migration at the U.S.-Mexico border. Read More

A Vanderbilt co-authored study of Brazilian responses to COVID-19 offers insight on the merits of social medicine while challenging widely held assumptions about traditional public health models. Read More

A team of Vanderbilt and Georgia State University researchers has developed publicly available resources for teaching personal geography and critical spatial inquiry. They recently launched a public website offering teaching frameworks and curricular tools for educators. Read More

Advances in big data technology and digital analytics are transforming the field of archaeology. One such study led by Vanderbilt anthropology professor Steven Wernke has brought a fresh perspective to the forced resettlement of more than a million Indigenous Andeans by Spanish colonizers in the 1570s. Read More

Isotope analysis of ancient Peruvian teeth gives anthropologists a clearer image of how cooperating societies function. Read More

A virtual self-screening tool developed by Vanderbilt global health experts will help individuals assess their risk of COVID-19 and provide anonymized data to public health researchers and officials studying the spread of the disease. Read More

A pair of international, collaborative online platforms developed by Steven Werkne and colleagues are helping archaeologists get a big-picture view of the Inka Empire and the Spanish invasion of the Andean region of South America. Read More

Sometimes the best way to understand the impact of an epidemic is to see it with your own eyes. Vanderbilt geospatial researchers have stepped up to apply their mapping skills to the COVID-19 crisis. Read More