Current and Former Graduate Student Accomplishments in Academic Year 2020-2021
External Fellowships and Awards:
Darius Bittle-Dockery (ABD) received the Provost Development Fund Award for AY 2021-2022.
Sinan Dogan (ABD) has a Cultural Anthropology Research Experience for Graduates NSF training grant.
Jennifer Farquhar (ABD) has received a Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship for 2021-22.
Jennifer Farquhar (ABD) received a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant.
Carolina Forgit-Knerr (ABD) received an Andrew Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship for AY 2020-2021.
Francisco Garcia Albarido (ABD) received a Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research for Spring 2021.
Kimberly Gonxhe (1st year student) received an Arts and Sciences Diversity Fellowship for AY 2020-2021.
Julie A. Hoggarth (PhD 2012), currently Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Baylor University, is an Inaugural Recipient of one of the AIA-NEH grants this summer for research to study the major sociopolitical transformations that altered the geopolitical landscape of the Maya lowlands in Belize at the end of the Classic period (AD 750-900).
Sarah Jolly (ABD) received a Rust Foundation grant.
Miroslav Kočić (PhD 2019) (co-PI) and Bryan Hanks (PI), are Inaugural Recipients of new (AIA-NEH) Archaeological Institute of America, National Endowment for the Humanities grants for archaeological research. The grant will support research efforts at the village site of Grivac in the Sumadija region of central Serbia and examines fundamental shifts in social organization and landscape use by some of the earliest farming communities in Southeastern Europe during the Neolithic period (5300-4600 BCE). [This is a site where Pitt Anthropologist Alan MacPherron worked in the late 1960s].
Ognjen Kojanic (PhD 2020) received a research fellowship from the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research for "Drain the Swamp: Infrastructure, Political Economy, and Human-Environment Relations in Belgrade Wetlands."
Dejana Kostic (ABD) has an Open Society Foundation grant and a Cultural Anthropology Research Experience for Graduates NSF training grant.
Dejana Kostic (ABD) received an Andrew Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship for AY 2020-2021.
Alysha Lieurance (3rd year student) received an Andrew Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship for AY 2020-2021.
Ana Marrugo (1st year student) received a Latin American Social and Public Policy Fellowship for AY 2020-2021.
Noël Marsh (ABD) has received a doctoral research fellowship from the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. She has also received the William T. Green, Jr. Award in Public Health Studies for the Spring 2021 term.
Noël Marsh (ABD) has received a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant for 2021-22.
Anna Mousouli (ABD) received the Klinzing Dissertation Grant in European Studies from the European Studies Center for the Summer 2021 term.
Maria Ryabova (2nd year student) received the Chancellor’s Fellowship in China and Chinese Studies from Pitt’s Asian Studies Center for the Summer 2021 term.
Amanda Suarez (ABD) has been awarded a Lewis and Clark Grant.
Nicolette Wong (ABD) received the Chancellor’s Fellowship in Fall 2020.
Jobs, Postdocs, and Internships:
Zhao Chao (PhD 2020) has the equivalent of an Assistant Professor position at Shaanxi Normal University.
Fernando Franchetti (PhD 2020) has been awarded a two-year post-doc with CONICET in Argentina.
Allison Gremba (PhD 2020) has accepted a position as Assistant Professor at Seton Hill University (Doctor of Physical Therapy Program)
Alicia Grosso (PhD 2020) was hired as Assistant Professor of Physical Therapy at Clarkson University, NY.
Julie Hoggarth (PhD 2012) has recently been promoted to Associate Professor of Anthropology at Baylor University.
Sarah Kennedy (PhD 2021) has accepted a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Carleton College.
Lauren Krishnamurti (PhD 2020) has accepted a three-year advanced postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Health Equity and Research, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Katie Pompeani (PhD 2020) has accepted a permanent position as Forensic Anthropologist for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA). She will be stationed at Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu, Hawaii. She will be involved in the field recovery and laboratory identification of missing U.S. service personnel.
Amanda Robinson (PhD 2017) has been hired as a full-time Research and Evaluation Project Manager at the Institute for Community Health in Malden, Massachusetts.
John Walden (PhD 2021) accepted a one-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany.
Nicolette Wong (ABD) has been awarded a Product Research Internship at SurveyMonkey for the Summer of 2021, which she declined in favor of another internship at Amazon Research.
Nicolette Wong (ABD) has received a summer internship from Amazon Research. She will be supervised by Dr. Michael Bobick, an anthropologist who previously had a Pitt Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies postdoctoral fellowship. This internship comes with a hiring option after degree completion.
Wonji Yoo (PhD 2018) has accepted a position as Assistant Professor at Hanbat National University, in South Korea (Liberal Arts).
Xia (Sharon) Zhang (PhD 2011) has been hired as a Research Coordinator at Oregon State University Hospital for the PEACH (Prenatal Environmental and Child and Health) research project.
Grad Publications:
Maria Lis Baiocchi (PhD 2019) was awarded Pitt’s Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies best Dissertation Award for “A Law of One’s Own: Newfound Labor Rights, Household Workers’ Agency, and Activist Praxis in Buenos Aires, Argentina.”
Maria Lis Baiocchi (PhD 2019) curated APLA's “Speaking Justice to Power Series: On the Gender and Sexual Politics of Contemporary Patriarchal Ethnonationalist Authoritarianism.” The series is related to migration, mobilities, displacement, citizenship, gender, and sexuality, and specifically gender and sexual politics of contemporary patriarchal ethnonationalist authoritarianism around the globe. It features the work of Carol Chan (PhD 2018), among others. Link: https://politicalandlegalanthro.org/tag/patriarchal-ethnonationalist-aut...
Patrick Beckhorn (ABD) has an article accepted in Anthropology of Work Review. “‘Work is Mandaa’: Breadwinning, Sexual Fitness, and Anti-Productivism among Cycle Rickshaw Men in North India."
Amar BK (ABD) has published an article at this citation: BK, Amar. 2020. “Speaking is Healing: Dalit Women Gain a Voice through a Charismatic Healing Movement in Nepal.” Caste: Global Journal on Social Exclusion. 1 (2): 73-90.
Sarah Kennedy (PhD 2020) has published an article in the Journal of Archaeological Science at this citation: Kennedy, Sarah A. and S.J. Kelloway. (2020). “Identifying Metallurgical Practices at a Colonial Silver Refinery in Puno, Peru, Using Portable X-Ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy (pXRF).” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 33. DOI: http://www.doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102568.
Sarah Kennedy (PhD 2020) has an article accepted at this citation: Kennedy, Sarah A., Kelloway, S.J., and Kennedy, A.J. (2021). "Archaeology in the Post-COVID-19 Era: Implementing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) at Archaeological Sites." The SAA Archaeological Record.
Sarah Kennedy (PhD 2020) has published an article at this citation: Kennedy, Sarah A. and S.J. Kelloway. (2021). "Heavy Metals in Archaeological Soils: The Application of Portable X-Ray Fluorescence (pXRF) Spectroscopy for Assessing Risk to Human Health at Industrial Sites." Advances in Archaeological Practice 9(2):145-159. DOI: http://www.doi.org/10.1017/aap.2020.52.
Miroslav Kočić (PhD 2019) and Petra Basar (2nd year student) co-authors: Kočić, M., B. Hanks, M. K. Krstić, M. Bermann, P. Basar, M. Mlyniec, 2020. Identifying Early Neolithic Settlements in the Šumadija Region of Serbia Through Combined Pedestrian Survey and Archaeological Geophysical Prospection. Interdisciplinaria Archaeologica: Natural Sciences in Archaeology, Vol. XI, 1: 9-19. (Michael Mlyniec is a Pitt Anthropology BA who earned a MSc at the University of Sheffield, Department of Archaeology).
Ognjen Kojanic (PhD 2020) published an article titled “We’re all here for the money”: solidarity and divisions in a worker-owned company,” Dialectical Anthropology (2020).
Ognjen Kojanic (PhD 2020) published an article “Theory from the Peripheries: What Can the Anthropology of Postsocialism Offer to European Anthropology?” Anthropological Journal of European Cultures 29(2). This article was the “most downloaded from Berghahn open journals” in 2020.
Lauren Krishnamurti (PhD 2020) published an article, “The Potential of “Watchful” Care: Preventing Suicide with Aloha in Hawaii,” in Medical Anthropology Quarterly.
Laurent Krishnamurti (PhD 2020) published a co-authored article: Spencer, N. E., Taubenberger, S. P., Roberto, R., Krishnamurti, L. S., Chang, J. C., & Hacker, K. (2021). "Stories of starting": Understanding the complex contexts of opioid misuse initiation. Substance abuse, 1–16. Advance online publication. doi:10.1080/08897077.2021.1878084
Sharon Toth (ABD) published an article: Toth, S.A., Siegel, M.I. “Canine cruciate ligament ruptures: Implications for financial costs and human health,” Anat Rec (Hoboken). 2021. Jan;304(1):222-230. doi: 10.1002/ar.24460. Epub 2020 Jun 23. PMID: 32574421.
John Walden (PhD 2021) & Emma Messinger (3rd year student) 2020: Walden, John P., Tia B. Watkins, Kyle Shaw-Müller, Claire E. Ebert, Emma Messinger, Rafael A. Guerra and Jaime J. Awe. Multiscalar approaches to reconstructing Classic Maya strategies of ceremonial inclusion and exclusion through the accessibility of architecture at Lower Dover, Belize. In El paisaje urbano maya: del preclásico al virreinato, edited by J. Garcia Targa, pp. 195-210. British Archaeological Reports, Oxford.
Nicolette Wong (ABD) was invited to present a TEDx talk for Universiti Teknologi Petronas for TEDxUTP: “How I became an anthropologist of technology: An unconventional Malaysian pursuing an unconventional path” (March 6, 2021)
Nicolette Wong (ABD) was invited to present a TEDx talk for Universiti Teknologi Malaysia for TEDxUTM: “The secret to building technology for humans: Why UX research is necessary in Malaysia’s tech industry” (April 10, 2021)
Gretchen Zoeller (1st year student) published an article: Zoeller, G.E.; B. Drew; C.W. Schmidt; R. Peterson; J.J. Wilson. 2021 (early view). A Paleodemographic Assessment of Mortality and Fertility Rates during the Second Demographic Transition in Rural Central Indiana. American Journal of Human Biology. DOI: 10.1002/ajhb.23571