Ph.D. Program
INformation for prospective Graduate students
The Department of Anthropology at Penn State welcomes applications for its Ph.D. program for Fall 2010. Several faculty members are particularly interested in attracting new doctoral students. Their names and research programs are described briefly below.
Nathan Craig has research projects running in two regions of Peru: the Lake Titicaca Basin and the Central Coast. Research foci at these two field sites include the Archaic-Formative transition, warfare, and cultural-environmental feedbacks. Potential student research projects related to these anthropological themes include, but are not limited to, GIS integrated investigations of paleoethnobotany, osteology, archaeometry, or soils. Especially welcome are applicants having Spanish language skills, or a strong commitment to developing them, and an interest in working in Latin America.
Carrie Hritz is broadly interested in human impacts on past landscapes, specifically 
in the rise of complex society in the Ancient Near East. Her current research focuses on human-environment interactions in the ancient world and the impact of subsistence technologies like irrigation on patterns of human habitation and land use. She uses GIS and satellite remote sensing and spatial analysis combined with archaeological evidence to describe and map long-term human-environment interactions and relate these to changes in social, political and economic organization. Her current field projects include archaeological landscape survey in the Balikh valley of Syria around the site of Tell Zeidan, and excavation of 4th Millennium BC levels at the site of Tell Hamoukar in north eastern Syria. She is looking for students that are interested in spatial analysis, ancient landscapes, and Near Eastern archaeology.
David Puts explores the evolutionary biology of mate choice, dominance, competition for mates, and other sexually differentiated behaviors. Graduate students in Dr. Puts' lab can study a variety of topics including, but not limited to: sexual selection on men’s and women’s voices and faces; sex hormone and genetic contributions to sexually differentiated psychological traits including mate preferences and spatial cognition; and the evolution and biological basis of other aspects of human sexuality, such as sexual orientation and female orgasm.
Tim Ryan conducts research on primate evolutionary anatomyand functional morphology, making use of the high-resolution CT scanner housed in his lab (www.cqi.psu.edu). In particular, he is interested in primate locomotion and evolution, the relationships between musculoskeletal form and function, and the role of external loading and other physiological factors on trabecular and cortical bone structure. He employs a variety of approaches including high-resolution X-ray computed tomography, three-dimensional quantification, and finite element modeling to address a range of topics related to primate and human evolution. Research opportunities currently exist for motivated graduate students to work on various projects including: 1) analyses of the functional morphology of trabecular bone across primates; 2) the ontogeny of locomotor and bone development in humans and non-human primates; 3) morphometric analyses of fossil crania and postcrania; and 4) finite element modeling of cranial and postcranial skeletal structures.
The HOMINID Research Group (Headed by Ken Weiss and Joan Richtsmeier (http://www.getahead.psu.edu/) seek students with strong bioscience, statistical, computer science background or experience, for several projects involving modern molecular developmental anthropology or comparative genomics. Our projects in this area include (1) computer simulation of the genetic basis of complex traits (including disease) and their evolution, and the analytic tools used to determine genetic causation from traits in people and animals; (2) imaging and computer simulation modeling of growth and development of complex physical traits, especially the skull and limbs; (3) modeling and genomic functional analysis of craniofacial growth, using a mouse experimental model (involving transgenic and gene expression methods, cell culture or immunobiology, or other approaches).
For further information on applying to the Anthropology graduate program, please click here.
