NIU Department of Anthropology

05/15/2026

The department would like to congratulate our faculty members Dr. Dana Bardolph and Dr. Micah Morton on receiving tenure and promotion to Associate Professor!

This career milestone comes after many years of work to establish their body of published work, teaching and international reputation in Archaeology and Cultural Anthropology, respectively. This honor reflects both faculty members' consistently high-impact research, teaching and service.

The approval process began a full year ago and concluded a few days ago with the final vote of the NIU Board of Trustees!

Congratulations to our newly minted Associate Professors! 🎉🎉🎉

05/12/2026

Congratulations to graduating senior Skye McCord, one of two students who had their stories featured at Saturday's commencement ceremony! 🎉🎓🎉🎓🎉🎓

Learn how Skye McCord’s experiences in the classroom as an Anthropology Major and outside the classroom studying in Italy shaped her future.

05/09/2026

We love graduation season! 🎉🎉🎉 Congratulations to all of our grads and honorees!

05/08/2026

Congratulations Mehrab Hasan on your successful MA thesis defense today! 🎉🎓🎉🎓🎉🎓

05/05/2026

Congratulations to the 21st Annual SAA Ethics Bowl Champions—Northern Illinois University!

The SAA Ethics Bowl is a competitive debate for undergraduate and graduate students where teams analyze and defend solutions to real-world ethical dilemmas in archaeology, helping students build strong ethical decision-making skills before encountering similar situations in their careers.

The AIA is a regular Ethics Bowl sponsor and offers each of the winners a complimentary student membership to the AIA. Well done to all of this year's competitors!

📸 Dana Bardolph, Emma Bell, Abigail (Abby) Deewaard, Justine Dioneda, Angelina (Angie) Guiterrez, and Alia Moran

05/05/2026

NIU Anthropology's delegation to the Society for American Archaeology meeting in San Francisco last week!
We're proud to announce that the NIU team (2 MA students and 3 undergraduates) took first place in the Ethics Bowl! Undergraduate research was also well-represented - Skye McCord presented a poster on Etruscan tombs, Angie Gutierrez presented a paper on tuition and wage prospects for careers in archaeology, and Alia Moran presented a paper on how “living archaeology” documents the present and centers community voices. Well done, Huskies!

05/01/2026

Congratulations to our MA student Ruth Otaigboria on her successful MA defense this week. Ruth, advised by our own Dr. Bennardo, studied "Cultural Models of Long Covid".
It is well established that cultural framing changes how individuals conceptualize health care and seek access to treatment and other care. Ruth's work specifically revealed such differences in Nigerian immigrants in the US with non-immigrants.
Congratulations! 🎉🎓

04/30/2026

NIU Anthropology incoming at the Society for American Archaeology meetings today in San Francisco!
Five of our NIU students are accompanying our own Dr. Bardolph-Carlsen - the team is presenting research from Peru and North America, and participating in the ethics bowl competition!

04/29/2026

The semester is winding down, and it's that time of year when we celebrate the amazing achievements of all our students, especially those graduating this year! Congratulations to all our award recipients! Your work is almost finished for this year - finish strong!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎓🎓😎

04/22/2026

Yesterday we were so pleased to host Dr. Jieun Kim of Midwestern University. She spoke to our faculty and students about ongoing research into improving techniques to estimate age-at-death from skeletal remains.
Learn more about her research here: https://facultyprofiles.midwestern.edu/1750-ji-eun-kim