Keynote Speakers

William R. Leonard is the Abraham Harris Professor of Anthropology & Global Health and the Director of the Global Health Studies Program at Northwestern University. He has done extensive research on aspects of energy metabolism, nutritional health, and child growth among indigenous agricultural populations of highland and lowland regions of South America (Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru), and among herding populations of Siberia. This work has focused on how these populations adapt to their ecological and social circumstances, and how the transition to a “modern” diet and lifestyle influences their health and chronic disease risks. Leonard and colleagues have also explored how major trends in human evolution have shaped the energy and nutritional requirements of our species. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Human Biology, and in 2021 was honored with the Franz Boas Distinguished Achievement Award from the Human Biology Association.

Professor Subhadra Mitra Channa served at Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi, retiring in 2016. Her research interests include marginalization and identity studies, gender, cosmology and religion, urban environments, and landscape. She authored Anthropological Perspectives on Indian Tribes (2020), The Inner and Outer Selves: Cosmology, Gender, and Ecology in the Himalayas (2013) and Gender in South Asia: Social Imagination and Constructed Realities (2013). In addition to the edited volumes are Life as a Dalit: Views from the Bottom Caste in India (2019) and Gender, Livelihood and Environment (2015, with Marilyn Porter), she has published more than 80 scholarly papers. Prof. Channa's work has been recognized through a Charles Wallace Fellowship (2000), an S. C. Roy Gold Medal (2011, Asiatic Society), and a Distinguished Teacher Award (2016, Delhi U). She held positions as a Fulbright Scholar-in Residence (2008) and Lecturer (2003), Visiting Professor (2002, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme; 2019, Universidade Federal da Bahia), and Visiting Scholar (2001, Kyoto University). Since served as the President of the Indian Anthropological Association (1997-2000) and since 2018 has held the position of Senior Vice-President of the IUAES (International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences) and Chair of the Commission on Marginalization and Global Apartheid.