The Department of Anthropology wants to recognize all of the incredible achievements of students, staff and faculty and a special congratulations to our graduates this semester! 

On Friday, April 24th, the department gathered for our annual Awards and Recognition Ceremony. The ceremony was a fun-filled afternoon of gratitude and fellowship. 

Highlights included PhD Candidate, Seungyeon Hong's Willson Center for the Humanities and Arts' Graduate Research Award and UGA Graduate School's Communication of Research and Scholarship Grant. Seungyeon was joined in receiving the Graduate Research Award from the Willson Center by PhD Student, Janaki Mohanachandra who also received the Janelle Padgett Knight Graduate Award from the Center for her top-ranked proposal for her project in Northeast India.

Undergraduate students were also celebrated including our wonderful CURO Symposium participants including Erin Summers, Charlotte Fowler, Roland Kimsey, Maya Iyer, Mianna Lotshaw, Josie Green, Richard Little, Vivian Poley, Annabelle Hartley, Lauren Bowman, Blaire Myrick, Maia Norman, and Guinever James.

Madison Pickett and Olivia Colon were selected to join the Franklin Ambassadors program and we are honored to have them represent us!

Students were also recognized for their achievements outside of the University of Georgia. PhD Students, Sarieh Amiribeirami and Seungyeon Hong, were honored at the 91st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology this year with the Dienje Kenyon Memorial Fellowship and Student Paper Award respectively.

Asif Sandeelo, under the advisement of Dr. Laura German, received the NSF's Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant to support his project titled "The Political Bird: Elite Falconry, Wildlife Laws, and the Marginalized Communities of Sindh, Pakistan". Tuğçe Yalçın​, under the advisement of Dr. Suzie Birch, received the Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations' Doctoral Fellowship and will be conducting fieldwork in Turkey during the upcoming academic year. Amit Kaushik, under the advisement of Dr. Pete Brosius, received the Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant to support his project titled "Caste and Conservation: Dalit Ecologies and Multispecies Life in the Central Indian Highlands". 

Finally, Delancey Griffin, first year PhD student, recently learned she's received the NSF's 2026 Graduate Research Fellowship for her project titled "New Echota and the Archaeology of Early 19th Century Cherokee Nation". This is a 5 year funded fellowship and we are excited to see what Delancey accomplishes.

On Friday, May 8th at 1:00 PM, the department gathered again to celebrate the graduation of our A.B. students! Dr. Paula Lemons and Dr. Isabelle Holland-Lulewicz joined in giving remarks to our graduates. We are so proud of our graduates and wish them the best in their future endeavors. Join us in congratulating them on their achievements and enjoy the attached media gallery of photos from both our awards ceremony and convocation ceremony.