Grant & Career Achievements

Lisa Anderson-Levy (Ph.D. 2008) joined Macalester in 2021 as Executive Vice President and Provost. She spent the past 13 years as Professor of Anthropology at Beloit College. Her scholarly interests focus on race, class, and gender in the Caribbean and United States. Her ongoing research examines the operations of whiteness as identity, structural apparatus, and ideology. 

Sean Devlin (Ph.D. 2023) is currently senior curator of the archaeological collection at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in Virginia. As a curator at a public-facing museum, he works connecting professional and public audiences with the materials in one of the nation's largest and oldest historical archaeological collections. His Anthropological training allows him to advocate for connecting the nation's past to its present and future through the evidence of archaeological material culture.

Caroline Fidan Tyler Doenmez (Ph.D. 2023) is currently an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Michigan State University, where she is also affiliated with the Center for Gender in Global Context and the American Indian and Indigenous Studies program. She received the University of Minnesota’s Best Dissertation Award in the Arts & Humanities category in the spring of 2024. Her book project examines the reclamation of Indigenous birthing sovereignty by Indigenous doulas and midwives in Manitoba, with special attention to the relationship between birth and water. 

David Mather (Ph.D. 2019) has served as National Register Archaeologist in Minnesota’s State Historic Preservation Office since 2006, and previously as the Consulting Archaeologist for the Mille Lacs Tribal Historic Preservation Office. David has worked as a professional archaeologist in Minnesota for more than three decades with specialties in environmental archaeology, zooarchaeology, and public archaeology. Significant portions of his career have focused on the Mille Lacs region, and the Rainy River on Minnesota’s northern border, where he authored the National Historic Landmark nomination for Grand Mound. At SHPO, David works primarily in the National Register of Historic Places program focusing on designation of archaeological sites, traditional cultural places and cultural landscapes, and with the Statewide Survey of Historical and Archaeological Sites. At the University of Minnesota, he has been the course instructor for Applied Heritage Management since 2016. David is currently seeking to organize a movement that would lead to the first UNESCO World Heritage designation(s) in Minnesota.

Samantha Porter (Ph.D. 2019) currently runs the Advanced Imaging Service for Objects and Spaces at the University of Minnesota, where she connects students and researchers with technology. From 3D scanning and printing to virtual and augmented reality development, Samantha uses skills gained during her Anthropology training to conduct archaeological and broader research, enhance artists' creative work, and increase public engagement with science.

Meryl Lauer (Ph.D. 2018) is an assistant professor at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, the oldest conservatory in the United States. Her current book project is an ethnography of South African ballet and examines everyday choreographies of social inequality.

Amélie Allard (Ph.D. 2016) is now a faculty member of the Anthropology Department at Rhode Island College (Providence, RI), where she teaches anthropology and archaeology. Since graduating, she has conducted historical-archaeological research in the Great Lakes region of Canada and the US as a postdoctoral fellow at the Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto, Ontario). As a college professor, she now uses her skills and creativity to share and transmit her passion of archaeology to undergraduate students as well as expand on her research on the relationship between community and waterways.  

Leonore Phillips (Ph.D. 2016) is developing the design and user experience research discipline at a Twin Cities software company. Since graduating, she has worked as a design researcher on a variety of tech products from smart devices to business software. Her dissertation looked at the ways that ideologies of work shape the ways that software is built. 

Heather O'Leary (Ph.D. 2014) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of South Florida. She serves as the Director of EcoFem Lab, on the Executive Committee for the International Union for Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, and also on the Steering Committee for the World Anthropological Union. Dr. Heather O'Leary champions citizen engagement for sustainable urban development. Her research interests include transnational disparities related to women’s rights, water politics, urbanization and the environment. She regularly presents on these topics at national and international anthropology conferences and works with governance institutions like the OECD to find social-science solutions. Her dissertation explored the cultural dimensions in disparities in urban water access through engaged ethnography among Delhi's water-poor.

Claire A. Kirchhoff (B.A. 2003, M.A. 2008, Ph.D. 2010) is a clinical associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Marquette University in her hometown of Milwaukee, WI.  She is passionate about teaching human gross anatomy to health professional students, including physical therapy, dental, and undergraduate students.  Her research addresses what it means to be human, integrating primate skeletal analysis with morphological and behavioral data in order to create narratives about foodways, social systems, life history, health, and mortality.

Alumna Kathleen Kuehnast is a socio-cultural anthropologist and director of the Gender Policy and Strategy at the United States Institute of Peace.