Anthropology

Ever wonder what your classmates and facuty are up to? This is where I found some of them...*updated*

Dr. Joan Gross, Linguistic Anthropologist

2012-13 is my sabbatical year and I received a Fulbright grant to do research on food activism in Ecuador and to establish a binational learning community focused on food, culture and social justice. It’s an exciting time to be looking into these issues in Ecuador since Article 13 of the Ecuadorian constitution of 2008 states, “Persons and community groups have the right to safe and permanent access to healthy, sufficient and nutritional food, preferably produced locally and in keeping with their various identities and cultural traditions.” This summer I attended several meetings of food activists who are working on how to put this article into practice. I also visited many agroecological farms and markets and interviewed people about their role in the food sovereignty movement.

Laura Henderson, MA Class of 1997

"I have just accepted a position at Springfield Technical Community College, as Director of Assessment. In this new job, I consider myself to be doing Applied Anthropology, since I"ll be doing qualitative social research on the college community with an eye to making positive changes there. Very excited to be making this transition, and a crucial piece of all of this is my training at OSU. So a big thanks to you guys for your role in getting me to where I am today, where I can contribute to "leveling the playing" field by helping provide quality higher education to the College's largely Latino/a and African American, first generation college, students!"

Christina Package, MA Class of 2007

"I'm just working here at NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) as an anthropologist doing social impact assessment for fisheries management actions. I'm in St. Petersburg, Florida and it's absolutely beautiful here! I've been here for a little over a year and have definitely already settled into the tropical lifestyle and am really happy here."

Kirsten Saylor, Executive Director of Gardening Matters, MA Class 2003

In 2004-2005, Kirsten worked with community gardeners to develop the Twin Cities Community Garden Sustainability Plan. In the summer of 2005, McKnight funded the implementation of the plan’s core recommendation, establishing a network of community gardens. This was GardenWorks, which was later spunoff to be an independent organization and renamed to Gardening Matters in 2008. Kirsten has a background in community food security, farming and food systems, sustainable agriculture and received her masters in Applied Anthropology from Oregon State University in 2003.