Current Graduate Students

Eric Awuah (PhD Student)

Kristal Barrywood (PhD Student)

Kristal is a PhD student specializing in Sociocultural Anthropology. Her research in Paganism began at the University of Chicago where she became an expert on environmentalism within pagan rituals through her Master's thesis. At the University of Alberta, her dissertation research focuses on the emergence of Western Paganism in Japan. Kristal is one of only a handful of academics in North America studying Paganism. 

Nataliya Bezborodova (PhD Candidate)

Dietlind Bork (PhD Candidate)

Kyla Cangiano (MA Student)

Darush Farrokh (PhD Student)

Janine Funk (MA Student)

Hajar Ghorbani (PhD Candidate):

Hajar is aPh.D. candidate in sociocultural anthropology at the University of Alberta, honored as a Killam Scholar. Her focus is on death studies in Iran, exploring themes like space, art, rituals, and material culture. For six years, she conducted fieldwork in Iran, studying the modernization and politicization of death. She co-edited "Social Studies of Death in Iran," a groundbreaking volume involving experts from various fields. As Iran's ambassador to the Association for the Study of Death and Society, she tries to globalize discussions on death in Iranian contexts. She has presented keynote speeches, including at the University of Bath, UK. Beyond academia, she is skilled in wood carving, pastel painting, and graphic design. She has also created art pieces honoring influential Iranian women, exhibited at the Isfahan University of Art. Currently, she's researching the agency of dead bodies, challenging traditional views by emphasizing their inherent power and voice. This perspective sheds light on Iran's societal dynamics, contributing fresh insights to anthropology and the issue of unmarked graves in Canada. 

Vivian Giang (PhD Candidate)

Hande Gür (PhD Candidate):

Hande (she/her) is a PhD candidate at the Department of Anthropology with a specialization in the anthropology of religion, spirituality, gender, and religious and social movements. Her doctoral research is an ethnographic study of the rise of Sufi—or mystical Islamic— practices among mainly young, middle-class women of Turkish origin living both in Türkiye and in the West. Gür brings to this research a solid record of academic research and publishing. She published her first solo article on this research in the Journal of Empirical Theology in 2020 and co-wrote a Turkish book based on a nation wide research, entitled  “Spiritual Seeking in Türkiye” (Türkiye’de Spiritüel Arayışlar) in 2021. 

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Hande-Guer-3

https://ualberta.academia.edu/Handeg%C3%BCr 

Uthman Khan (PhD Student):

Uthman is a PhD student at the University of Alberta, specializing in Sociocultural Anthropology. 

Serafina King (MA Student):

Serafina is a second-year master's student in religious anthropology working under the supervision of Dr. Joseph Hill. 

Oleksandra Kushnir (MA Student)

 Oleksandra is a Master's student in Sociocultural Anthropology working under the supervision of Marko Zivkovic. She completed her BA in International Relations and European Studies at Coventry (UK) and Lazarski (Poland) Universities with honours. She obtained her MA degree with distinction in Culture, Media and Society from the Polish Academy of Science and Lancaster University (joint degree). Her academic interest resides in exploring political, historical and social processes in Central and Eastern Europe, specifically in Russia and Ukraine. Currently, in her MA research, Oleksandra applies the lens of sociocultural anthropology and cultural psychology to examine historical “Great Patriotic War” narratives in the Kremlin-originated propaganda, providing it with a broader cultural and social context. 

Junhong Ma (PhD Candidate):

Driven by a fascination with the contrasts between Taiwan and Mainland China's tea cultures, she joined the University of Alberta’s Anthropology Department. Her collaborative research with Dr. Jean DeBernardi on the "Material Identity: The Anthropology of Chinese Tea Culture" project from 2015 to 2017 offered an extensive exploration of the tea industry. This included interviews with tea business owners and educators across Taiwan and China and visits to a wide array of tea-related sites, from farms and museums to factories and company headquarters, mainly in Fujian and Zhejiang Provinces. In her research, she examined the symbolic values of tea in relation to globalization, modernization, nationalism, identity formation, and particularly gender representation. Central to my dissertation was the analysis of major tea companies like Ten Ren’s Tea (天仁) in Taiwan and TenFu’s Tea (天福) in Mainland China, exploring their roles as cultural ambassadors.This project primarily focused on the cultural peak of tea, scrutinizing knowledge transfer, technological advancements, communication, and the intricate dynamics between Taiwan and China. Furthering this study, she investigated the vocational training systems for professional tea masters (茶艺师) in Mainland China influenced by Taiwan and the interplay of traditional aesthetics and business interests in the tea industry. My fieldwork included following graduates of vocational school in urban centers and tea villages, studying local Mainland tea brands, small-scale tea farmers, and the local tea business landscape. This comprehensive approach aimed to provide a understanding of the evolving tea culture in those region.

Emmy Marks (MA Student):

Emmy is a Master’s student in her second year in cultural anthropology. Her thesis project will include ethnographic research into unhoused communities to learn more about their unique experiences and challenges so that readers can understand the application of degrowth-centred debates as they relate to the global issue of homelessness. Her work will focus on the voices of marginalized women with a special sub-focus on LGBTQ+ voices. She is working alongside Dr. Joseph Hill who serves as her supervisor. 

Cynthia Olufade (PhD Student) 

Zhiyan Ren (MA Student):

She is working on the family food practices in present China, especially those conducted by women and influenced by social media.

Samira Torabi (PhD Candidate)

Stenette van den Berg (PhD Student)

Keyna Young (MA Student)

Devyn Caldwell (PhD Candidate)

Zhouran Dai (PhD Student)

Christine Hymanyk (MA Student)

Jennifer Laughton (PhD Candidate):

Jennifer (she/elle/она) is a PhD candidate specializing in biological anthropology. She is a member of the Baikal Archaeology Project (BAP) and is supervised by Dr. A. Weber. Her research focuses on the dental anthropology and odontometrics of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age hunter-gatherers of the Cis-Baikal region of Siberia, Russia. 

Женя - аспирант в Университете Алберты. Она по специалностью биологической антропологой, и является участником Байкальского Археологического Проекта (БАП) под руководством А. Вебера. Её исследование - сосредоточено на одонтологии и одонтометрии охотников-собирателей Предбайкалья. 

Sara Lefurgey (MA Student)

Xingyu Man (PhD Candidate) 

Elizabeth McKay (MA Student)

Tristan Mula (MA Student)

Sadie Tremblay (MA Student):

Sadie (she/her) completed her BSc in forensic anthropology at the University of Dundee with first-class honours. She is a current MA student in biological anthropology under the supervision of Dr. Lesley Harrington and FSO Tonya Simpson. Her current research uses medical imaging techniques to collect facial soft tissue thickness values in living Indigenous populations to improve the accuracy and precision of forensic facial reconstructions. Through this research, she aims to give investigators a new set of tools to aid in the identification of MMIWG2S. 

Rachel Simpson (PhD Candidate):

Rachel began her PhD in 2020 under the supervision of Dr. Sandra Garvie-Lok, exploring lead exposure in late Roman to early Byzantine Corinth and Stymphalos, Greece. Her research uses synchrotron radiation microbeam techniques to examine lead uptake on a microstructural level in archaeological teeth and bones from these populations. These high resolution microstructural "maps" provide insights into patterns of lead exposure across individuals' lifetimes, as well as a means of identifying lead contamination of skeletal remains in the burial environment. 

Megan Bieraugle (PhD Candidate)

Megan Bieraugle is a PhD candidate in the department of Anthropology at the University of Alberta, exploring the relationship between Indigenous People and dogs on the Canadian Plains during the mid to late Holocene. Megan specializes in zooarchaeological assemblage analysis and biometry, having completed her MSc in Environmental Archaeology and Palaeoeconomy at the University of Sheffield. Beyond school, Megan enjoys teaching, coaching volleyball, and spending time with a good book. 

Faith Boser (MA Student): 

Faith obtained her BA (honours) degree in archaeology from the University of Saskatchewan in the spring of 2021. She is currently a second-year master's student studying under the supervision of Dr. Robert Losey. For her thesis, she is working with collections from Lake Midden, a site located in southern Saskatchewan, dating to the Pericolonial period. Her project is focused on analyzing faunal remains from the site. Faith’s research interests include zooarchaeology, Great Plains archaeology, the archaeology of food, human and animal relationships, and mortuary archaeology. 

Elizabeth Goldberg (PhD Student)

Stephanie Halmhofer (PhD Candidate)

Jesse Heintz (MA Student)

Ben Kucher (MA Student)

Katherine Latham (PhD Candidate)

Solène Mallet Gauthier (PhD Candidate):

Solène studies overwintering Métis identity using plant and insect remains found at Chimney Coulee, located in SW Saskatchewan. Her research interests include foodways, identity, colonial contexts, historical archaeology, and environmental archaeology. 

Maria Nelson (MA Student)

Maria is a Master's student working under the supervisor of Dr. Kisha Supernant. Her research has brought her to the Exploring Métis Identity Through Archaeology (EMITA) project, with a focus on Métis identity as it intersects with Kinscapes, Deathscapes, and Mortuary Archaeology. 

Dawn Wambold (PhD Student):

Born and raised between the Bow and Clearwater Rivers, and within sight of the Rocky Mountains, Dawn continues to live in the same lands that her Métis and Cree family were connected to. As a scholar at the Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archaeology, she aims to tell the stories of her ancestors’ connections to Southern Alberta using archaeology. She is married to Robert and together they have a daughter named Cassidy who is an undergraduate student in the anthropology department. 

Kaitlyn Young (PhD Candidate)

Sarah Mann (MA Student):

Sarah (she/her/elle) is a Francophone second year graduate student at the University of Alberta. She completed her Bachelors in Anthropology from the University of Alberta in 2023. Her research interests include Michif, language inclusion in archaeology, and Métis history. Sarah is a southern Michif, French Michif and Muskogee learner. 

MA

Maggie DeCoste (2025), Allyson Lynch (2025), Viktoriya Popovych (2025), Saba Nuzhat (2025), Brianne Bertram (2024), Maegan Huber (2024), Lyndsay Dagg (2024), Ben Louter (2024), Emily Haines (2024), Nazia Mahmoud (2023), Selina Ertman (2023), Josie Baker (2023), Ella Forgie (2021)

PhD

Rebecca Bourgeois (2025), Brenda Guernsey (2025), Morgan Moffit (2025), Liam Wadsworth (2025), Jennifer Nelson (2024), Philbert Katto (2024), Katherine Gadd (2021), Katherine Bishop (2021)

*Lists are not exhaustive