Recent Graduates

(PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MA Anthropology, McGill University; BA Honours Anthropology, University of British Columbia)

Christopher J.H Ames

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; BA, MA Anthropology, University of Alberta

Interests: Conflict, displacement, humanitarianism, discourse analysis, post-structuralism, northern Uganda
Supervisor: John Galaty
kimberley.armstrong [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

Kim Armstrong

MA Anthropology, McGill University; Ontario Graduate Certificate in Museum Management and Curatorship, Fleming College; BA Anthropology, McGill University

Current Employment: Teacher in the Anthropology Department at John Abbott College (Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec)
Interests: Evolution education, human evolution, Canadian museums, Canada
Thesis: “Evolution Education in Canada's Museums: Where is Human Evolution?”
Supervisors: Michael Bisson and Brian Alters (Chapman University)
sarah.bean [at] johnabbott.qc.ca (Email)
Website

MA Anthropology, McGill University

MA Anthropology, McGill University

Thesis: "Hearing and Speaking with Senility: Aging, Dementia, and Caregiving in Beijing, China"
Interests: Aging, senility, end-of-life, caregiving, mental health; China
Supervisor: Sandra Hyde
shika.card [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

Shika Card

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MA University of Toronto; BA Anthropology, University of Waterloo

Current Employment: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine (CBSSM) University of Michigan
About Current Employment: I joined the CBSSM in the Department of Internal Medicine in September 2013, and am supervised by Dr. Beth Tarini, a primary care pediatrician with appointments at CBSSM and the Child Health Evaluation and Research Unit. My research focus is the ethical dimensions of performing bariatric surgery on obese children and adolescents under 18 years of age. With Dr. Scott Roberts at the School of Public Health, I continue my research on personalized medicine in the US, and am participating in working groups of the Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research Consortium. I am also a Co-Investigator on a 5-year prospective cohort study funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research that examines the psychological and behavioral responses of children following PICU hospitalization in four cities.
Training and Skills: Qualitative research (policy hearings) and data analysis (ethnographic and clinical); grant-writing.
Interests: Medicalization of children, bariatric surgery, personalized medicine, United States
Thesis: “Genetic Discrimination: Genealogy of an American Problem”
Supervisor: Margaret Lock
Curriculum vitae
childerh [at] med.umich.edu (Email)
Website

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MA Anthropology, University of Alberta; BA Anthropology, University of Manitoba

Thesis: "The Taphonomy and Subsistence Strategies from the Final Middle Stone Age Occupation at Sibudu Cave, South Africa"
Interests: Zooarchaeology, taphonomy, southern Africa
Supervisor: Andre Costopoulos
benjamin.collins [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

Ben Collins

MA Medical Anthropology, McGill University; BSc Biochemistry and Anthropology

Interests: Medical anthropology, anthropology of science, efficacy, number, bureaucracy, emotion, Canada
Thesis: “Medicine, Multiculturalism, and Managerialism: How Government Scientists Evaluate the Efficacy of Traditional and Alternative Medicines”
Supervisor: Allan Young
jennifer.cuffe [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MSc Anthropology, University of Toronto; BA Anthropology, New College of Florida

Current Employment: SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Arctic Centre, University of Groningen, the Netherlands 
Thesis: "Food Security, climate change and the Zooarchaeology of Neo-Inuit Sea-Mammal Hunting, Northwest Foxe Basin, Nunavut, Canada."
Interests: Arctic anthropology, Arctic and subarctic ecology, traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), environmental archaeology, food security and food safety, Inuit culture
Supervisor: James Savelle

sean.desjardins [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

Sean P.A. Desjardins

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MA Anthropology, Northern Arizona University

Interests: Anthropology of development, alternative development, organisational culture, FAO, livelihoods approaches, practice theory, ethnography, complex organisations
Thesis: “How ‘Agency’ Makes a Complex Organisation Work: A Journey in Everyday Practices at the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO)”
Supervisor: John Galaty
genevieve.dionne [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MA Medical Anthropology, McGill University; BS highest hon. Biology/Asian Studies with Anthropology Minor, University of Michigan

Thesis: “Global Health Assemblages: An Ethnography of Tuberculosis in China”
Interests: Global health, infectious diseases, citizenship, history of medicine
Supervisors: Sandra Hyde, Tobias Rees, and Ronald Niezen
Blog
emilio.dirlikov [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

Emilio Dirlikov

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MSc Anthropologie, Université de Montréal; BSc Université de Montréal

Thesis: “Black Matters: Young Ethiopian Jews and Race in Israel”
Interests: Diaspora, migration, transnationalism, racialization, blackness, youth culture, cultural integration, globalization, African American studies, Jewish studies, social and cultural anthropology, anthropology of youth culture, anthropology of race and ethnicity, anthropology of development; Middle East (Israel), North America (Canada, Quebec), East Africa (Ethiopia)
Supervisor: Setrag Manoukian
gabriella.djerrahian [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MSc Ethnobotany, University of Kent at Canterbury; BA, New School for Social Research

Thesis: “The Restorative Ecology of the Great Law of Peace: Environmental Knowledge and Stewardship in Haudenosaunee Homeland”
Interests: Environmental anthropology, Indigenous studies, ethnoecology, political ecology, community/participatory methods, oral tradition, Six Nations of the Grand River, Ontario, native cultures of northeastern North America, Ireland
Supervisors: Andre Costopoulos and Colin Scott
Website
jessica.dolan [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

Jessica M. Dolan

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MA Social Sciences, University of Chicago; BA high honours Anthropology, Harvard University

Thesis: “Living with Sacred Lands: Negotiating Sustainable Heritage Management and Livelihoods in the Marquesas Islands”
Interests: Cultural landscapes, resources, land use and embodiment, heritage management, sustainability, power, development, indigenous peoples; Oceania, French Polynesia
Supervisor: Colin Scott
Website
Blog
emily.donaldson [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)
Curriculum vitae

Emily Donaldson

MA Anthropology, McGill University

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MA Anthropology, McGill University; BA Anthropology, Université de Montréal

Thesis: “Intersecting Knowledges: Engagement and Reciprocity between Arctic Archaeology and Inuit People”
Interests: Collaborative archaeology, material culture, memory, oral traditions, culture and health, tradition and modernity, Inuit
Supervisor: James Savelle and Nicole Couture
marie-pierre.gadoua2 [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

MA Medical Anthropology, McGill University; BA Mount Holyoke College

Interests: Medical anthropology, Senegal, Burkina Faso
Supervisor: Vinh-Kim Nguyen

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MA Social Anthropology, York University; BA Anthropology, Health & Society

Interests: Violence, social suffering, gender, Guatemala
Thesis: “Women and Violence in Urban Post-War Guatemala”
Supervisor: Kristin Norget

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MSc GIS and Spatial Analysis in Archaeology, University College, London; BSc Archaeological Sciences, University of Toronto

Interests: Practice of archaeology, GIS and geovisualization, post-colonial societies
Thesis: "Behind the frontline: local communities, national interests and the practice of Indian archaeology"
Supervisor: Fumiko Ikawa-Smith (McGill) and Stephen Chrisomalis (Wayne State University)
neha.gupta [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)
Website

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MA Anthropology, McGill University; BSc Archaeology and Geography, University of Lethbridge

Thesis: "The Social Production of the Chimu Empire"
Interests: Chimu empire, colonialism and power, processes of subjectification, north coast of Peru
Supervisor: Nicole Couture
randy.hahn [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

MA Anthropology, McGill University

MA Anthropology, McGill University; BS Biology, McGill University

Interests: Critical social theory, global capitalism, consumption studies, Malaysia
Thesis: “Producing Healthy Individuals in Malaysia: The Production and Consumption of Health and Wellness among Malay Women”
Supervisor: Sandra Hyde

MA Anthropology, McGill University; BA, University of Alabama

Interests: Development anthropology, the informal economy, trust and solidarity networks, knowledge adoption, microfinance, gender, Kenya
Supervisor: John Galaty
carlyn.james [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

Carlyn James

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MA Public Anthropology, American University; BA Development Studies, Brown University

Interests: Governance, institutions, social/environmental change, activism, networks, politics of knowledge, Inuit, scientists, researchers, policymakers, activists, Arctic/global networks and institutions
Thesis: “Inuit ‘Participation’ in Climate Change Governance: From Clyde River to Copenhagen”
Supervisor: Ronald Niezen
noor.johnson [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; BA, University of Chicago

Thesis: "Indigenous Difference at the Canada/US Border"
Interests: Indigenous peoples of North America, indigenous rights, anthropology of law, border studies, Haudenosaunee/Iroquois studies, security and surveillance
Supervisors: Ronald Niezen and Colin Scott
ian.kalman [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

Ian Kalman

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MA Anthropology, Eberhard-Karls Universität Tübingen

Current Employment: Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine at King's College London
Interests: War, violence, trauma, mental health, global (mental) health, humanitarian aid, Kosova, Palestine, Nepal
Thesis: “The Differential Impact of War and Trauma on Kosovar Albanian Women Living in Post-War Kosova”
Supervisor: Allan Young
hanna.kienzler [at] kcl.ac.uk (Email)
Website

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MA Social Anthropology, Concordia University

Thesis: "Good Politics": Property, Intersectionality, and the Making of the Anarchist Self
Interests: The PhD dissertation explores anarchist networks that cross Québec, the United States, Mexico and beyond, to illustrate similarities and differences among diverse anarchist scenes, as well as examine diverse contradictions characterizing anarchist solidarity activism and settler ‘anarchoindigenism’. The multi-sited ethnography throws into relief the particular practices of university-educated Anglo-American leftists, and draws on anthropological, feminist and critical race theory to show how they have preempted the black feminist challenge of “intersectionality” by recuperating its praxis within the logic of neoliberal self-making projects and property relations. The anarchists are finally presented as a limit case: even within their ‘autonomous’ practices, the propertizing self prevails in the game of “good politics” - the Bridge of all prestige games, and one which structures much contemporary critical academic scholarship as well. Ongoing post-doctoral research concerns “conspiracy theory”; the politics of trauma and recognition in North America; the political economy of marijuana legalization in the Americas.
Supervisors: PhD: Kristin Norget. External Examiners: Beverley Skeggs, Gabriella Coleman; MA: Sally Cole
erica.lagalisse [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

Erica Lagalisse

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MSc Anthropology, Université de Montréal

Thesis: “Formalization of Identity, a Diversity of Experiences and the Emergence of a Cree Community in Québec Abitibi”
Interests: Social and cultural anthropology, history of colonialism, development and bureaucracies, formalization of identity, Northern Québec, Ontario
Supervisor: Colin Scott
david.lessard2 [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

PhD Anthropology, McGill University

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MA Anthropology, McGill University; BA Anthropology, University of Alberta

Interests: Politics, development, governance, corruption, indigenous rights, post-foraging communities, Dorobo, Maasai, Kenya
Thesis: “Socio-cultural politics of rural poverty and resource governance in Kenya's Rift Valley”
Supervisor: John Galaty

BA History and Anthropology, Vanderbilt University

Interests: Intra-urban organization and differentiation at Tiwanaku, Bolivia archaeology, early urbanism, ceramics, materiality, Highland Andes 
Supervisor: Nicole Couture

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MA Medical Anthropology, McGill University; BA Anthropology, Yale University

Interests: Medical anthropology, humanitarianism, philanthropy, global health movements, Haiti, Dominican Republic, North America
Thesis: “‘Where They Need Me’: The Moral Economy of International Medical Aid in Haiti”
Supervisor: Allan Young
pierre.minn [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

MA Anthropology, McGill University; BA Social Sciences, University College Utrecht

Thesis: "Conservation Connections: Governance, Social Connected and Democratic Dilemmas in Lake Natron Wildlife Management Area"
Interests: Conservation, land conflict, political ecology, knowledge production, social mobility, indigenous peoples; Tanzania
Supervisor: John Galaty
alicia.mori [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

Alicia Mori

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; BA Anthropology and History, McGill University; MA International Studies, University of Northern British Columbia

Current Employment: Postdoctoral Researcher, The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), Geneva
Interests: Medical and cultural anthropology, biotechnology, seeds, intellectual property rights, social movements, Brazil, India
Thesis: “Biological Dispossession: An Ethnography of Resistance to Transgenic Seeds Among Small Farmers in Southern Brazil”
Supervisor: Vinh-Kim Nguyen (UdeM)
karine.peschard [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

Karine Peschard

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MA Social and Cultural Anthropology, Concordia University; BA hon. Anthropology, University of Toronto

Thesis: "Doing Well by Doing Good: Logics of Corporate Social Responsibility in Bangalore, India"
Interests: Biopolitics, history of welfare, neoliberalism, market/gift exchange, humanitarianism, Hinduism, charity; India
Supervisor: Lisa Stevenson
Website
nicole.rigillo [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

Nicole Rigillo

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MA Anthropology, McGill University

Interests: Indigenous Peoples and the Oil Industry
Region: Russian Arctic
Supervisor: Ronald Niezen

MA Anthropology, McGill University

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MA Medical Anthropology, McGill University; BA hon. Anthropology, University of Michigan

Thesis: “Forced Begging, Aid and Children’s Rights in Senegal: Stories of Suffering and Politics of Compassion in the Promotion of Rights for the Taalibe Qur’anic School Children of Senegal and Mali”
Interests: Humanitarianism, children's rights, childhood, West Africa, Senegal, Mali
Supervisor: Sandra Hyde
Website
sara.thiam [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

Sara E. Thiam

MA Anthropology, McGill University; BA Anthropology, McGill University

Interests: Technology and development, pastoralism, social change, Maasai, East Africa
Supervisor: Philip Salzman
jessika.tremblay [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

MA Anthropology, McGill University

Interests: Medical anthropology, Vietnam
Supervisors: Ellen Corin and Allan Young

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MA Archaeology, Simon Fraser University; BA Anthropology, McGill University

Interests: Zooarchaeology, anthropology of food, domestic archaeology, Andes, Titicaca basin, Bolivia
Thesis: “Investigation of social differences in Tiwanaku barrios: a zooarchaeological approach”
Supervisor: Nicole Couture
claudine.vallieres [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

PhD Candidate, Anthropology, University of Toronto; MA Anthropology with Development, McGill University; BA Political Science and Anthropology, University of British Columbia

Interests: Violence, ethics, memory, gender, ontology, subjectivity, trauma, ghosts, spirit possession, Acholi, Uganda
Thesis: “Living with the Dead: Building Ethical Relations in Acholi, Northern Uganda”
Supervisor: Michael Lambek (UToronto) and Todd Sanders (UToronto)
Curriculum vitae
letha.victor [at] utoronto.ca (Email)
Website

Letha Victor

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MA anthropology, McGill University; BA Anthropology, University of Iceland

Thesis: "The Cultural Politics of Development in Post-Conflict Angola" (Working Title)
Interests: Post-war reconstruction, informal market, urban development, civil society, international development, poverty, Angola, Malawi
Supervisor: John Galaty
petur.waldorff [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)
Curriculum_vitae

MA Anthropology, McGill University; BA Honours Anthropology and Interdisciplinary Studies in Sexuality, Concordia University

Interests: Queer theory, gender and sexuality studies, performativity, public health as disciplinary practice
Thesis: "Filling the Gap, Refusing the Gap: Queer Safer Sex in Montreal"
Supervisor: Sandra Hyde 
valerie.webber [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)

Associate of Applied Science, Computer Information and Office Systems, University of Alaska, Anchorage; PhD Anthropology, McGill University; BA Native Studies and Comparative Development Studies, Trent University

Thesis: "Land is Life, Conservancy is Life.” The San and the N=a Jaqna Conservancy, Tsumkwe District West, Namibia"
Interests: San, community-based natural resource management, Indigenous rights, land reform, development, Southern Africa, Namibia
Supervisor: John Galaty
cwelch [at] fastmail.fm (Email)

PhD Anthropology, McGill University; MSc Social Anthropology, London School of Economics; Hospital Chaplain Residency, University of Pennsylvania; BA International Public Health (self-designed major), Pomona College

Interests: Medical anthropology, religion, epistemology, death, discourse, phenomenology, United States
Thesis: Making Hospital Chaplains in an Age of Biomedicine
Supervisor: Ellen Corin
wwill3 [at] yahoo.com (Email)

MSc Archaeology, University College London; BA Anthropology, McGill University

Interests: Archaeology, GIS, maritime adaptations, lithics, exchange and interaction
Region: James Bay
Ethnic Groups: Contemporary Cree and Prehistoric Hunter-gatherers
Supervisor: Andre Costopoulos
Website
colin.nielsen [at] mcgill.ca (Email)