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Joe Edward Watkins
Watkins’s studies mainly concern the ethical practices of anthropology and connections to the descendant communities of indigenous peoples in the Southwest. Watkins is known for his activism, giving a voice to Native Americans in anthropology. He has published many articles and books bridging perspectives and conversations between indigenous groups and anthropologists. He has been involved with many national organizations and committees that monitor ethical policies for American anthropology. -
Shannon Lee Dawdy
Dawdy's research examines the history of the Atlantic world since 1450. She integrates intellectual community life with stories of people who resisted governance, providing a more inclusive narrative of colonial dynamics in the US Southeast. Dr. Dawdy researches how landscapes and material objects mediate human relationships and how shared cultural experiences affect perceptions of time. She has written extensively on New Orleans, covering French colonialism and life before and after Katrina. -
Veronica Perez Rodriguez
Veronica Perez Rodriguez studies the development of agricultural landscapes and urban centers in the area, focusing on urbanism and the environment. She combines archaeological methods (GIS, ethnography, ethnohistory) with geomorphological studies. Her team was also the first to recreate by video how to make timepiece pottery from the clay found in the region. -
Jason Nez
Jason Nez is a Diné (Navajo) archaeologist whose work as a “fire archaeologist” involves going ahead of firefighters to ensure culture sites are not destroyed while containing wildfires. He helps firefighters make decisions about what tools to use and advises them about how they can avoid destruction. His also examines new Diné archaeological sites. This work is crucial to educating the public about the Diné connection to the Grand Canyon and showing that Native peoples never left. -
Jason de Leon
In 2015 he published The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail, combining many anthropological research methods to document items left by migrants in the Sonoran Desert of AZ. He studies the Hybrid Collectif, or the factors in the Sonoran Desert that carry out the US border patrol policy of prevention through deterrence. He uses Necropolitics to describe how the US government justifies the death of migrants and to describe the violent ways the Hybrid Collectif treats them. -
Davina Two Bears
Dr. Davina Two Bears is studies anthropological archaeology and Indigenous (specifically Navajo) studies. She uses oral histories to understand the history and cultural memories of the Old Leupp Boarding School, one of two major Federal Navajo Boarding Schools, active from 1909-1942. Her main interest lies in the daily lives of Navajo children and their ability to maintain their cultural identity and language through resistance against the U.S. government’s efforts to assimilate them. -
Blaire Rose Zaid
She did her field work in US, the Caribbean, and Africa. Now her work focuses on African American freedom practices in 19th and early 20th century. Her current work has to do with ways free African descendants lived, worked, and sought leisure in the 19th and 20th century Midwest.
