Graduate Students (N-Z)

BA Anthropology, Macalester College; Master of Liberal Studies, U Minnesota. For my dissertation project, I am working on an exploration of Indigenous epistemology, specifically including Ahnishinahbæó t jibway understandings of and relationships with the land. For more information, see my website.

BA in Interdisciplinary Studies & History, U Minnesota; MA in Popular Culture from Bowling Green State U. Anthropology of history and memory.

BA Anthropology and German, UC Berkeley. I am interested in exploring how the recruitment of highly skilled, Information Technology (IT) workers influences larger debates around integration, multiculturalism, and nationality in Germany. More broadly I want to examine the roles technology, economy, and immigration play in constructing and deconstructing the idea of nation.

BA Anthropology, International Studies, & English, Macalester College; Master of Business Administration, Southern Methodist U. For my dissertation project, "Money, Morality and the Value of Self-Worth: Community and economic transformation in Havana, Cuba," I conducted 15 months of fieldwork in Havana, Cuba, funded jointly by the MacArthur Program and a David L. Boren Graduate Fellowship from the Academy for Education Development. This research attends to the interconnections between culture and economy, and the role that labor practices and community values play in the formation of local and national identities. Specifically, I address the ways that Cubans are experiencing the economic transformations occurring in their nation through an analysis of household based businesses, consumption practices, and gender roles. My work highlights the power disparities that are at play in economic change, while also showing the particular focus on community that Cubans give to their economic practices. As an examination of a society and economy firmly differentiating itself from global capitalism, this research offers a counterpoint to theories of homogenized global economies and provides insight into the otherwise taken for granted capitalist system. My research and teaching interests encompass theories of globalization, gender and economic transformations, post-socialist theory, consumption and culture, urban anthropology, and the anthropology of work.

Melisa Rivière is a Latina hip-hop producer, scholar, and activist. She
initiated her relationship with hip-hop as a visual artist and
documentalist in 1991 and has since expanded her work into other
elements of hip-hop via production, academics, artist management and
event planning. Some of her scholarly works include Art Graffiti (B.A.
thesis) and Graffiti as a Social Resistance Movement (M.A. thesis).
Melisa is currently a MacArthur Ph.D. candidate in the Anthropology
Department at the University of Minnesota completing her research
titled "Son Dos Alas" based on the reproduction of authenticity in the
diffusion of the four elements of hip-hop in Cuba and Puerto Rico. She
has worked as an audio-visual producer with artists from In The House
Magazine, Songo Sounds, Time Machine Squad, The Lab Studios, The Cuban
Agency for Rap, and the Hermanos Saíz Association. Her works include
documenting hip-hop conferences, festivals, and live performances, as
well as producing audio recordings and music video clips with Anónimo
Consejo, Tego Calderón, Doble Filo, SieteNueve, Obsesión, and La Mala
Rodríguez amongst others. Melisa serves as Co-Founding Director and
Project Manager for B-Girl Be: A Celebration of Women in Hip-Hop whose
mission is to influence and inspire leadership to change the
perceptions and roles of women in hip-hop. She also teaches courses in
Anthropology and Global Studies at the University of Minnesota
utilizing hip-hop as a pedagogical tool while serving as president of
Emetrece Productions, an audio-visual production and artist management
company that focuses on Latin hip-hop. You can view Melisa's Ph.D. work
at http://www.tc.umn.edu/~rivi0001/

Jane Shuttleworth
Sociocultural Anthropology

I'm a PhD candidate in Archaeology and Biological Anthropology, minoring in
Human Genetics. I started the program in 2001 after spending four years
working as a field and laboratory Archaeologist for various Cultural
Resource Management firms. I received my BA in Anthropology in 1996 from
the University of Washington, Seattle.

My doctoral research is focused upon identifying correlations between
various factors that influence DNA preservation and the successful recovery
of DNA from archaeological and challenging forensic specimens. During my
tenure as a graduate student, I have completed internships at the Minnesota
Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) DNA lab, and at the PaleoDNA
Laboratory at Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario. For the past two
years I've been employed as a Forensic Scientist in the DNA section of the
BCA Laboratory. I have also returned twice to the PaleoDNA Laboratory to
conduct aspects of my research.

I'm currently writing up my dissertation, which involves chemical and
genetic analyses of sediment samples and faunal remains collected from the
Silvernale village site in Red Wing, Minnesota, the National Heritage sites
of Border Cave and Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa, and the World Heritage
site of Kromdraai, South Africa.