The Anthropology Department took home seven awards from the recent IUP Research Appreciation Ceremony.The awards included Research on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice; High Impact Teaching Practice; and Graduate Student Research.
Five Anthropology faculty and one graduate student were recognized during the ceremony. These results are particularly impressive, given the Anthropology Department's small size, with only eight faculty. If research is the engine of higher education, IUP Anthropology is the slant six of research.
This year's award ceremony included both 2019-2020 awardees and 2020-2021 awardees.
Victor Garcia won the 2020-2021 Research on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice Award for his ongoing, National Institutes of Health-funded research on health disparities. Garcia directs the Mid-Atlantic Research and Training Institute for Community and Behavioral Health (MARTI), which was recognized as the 2019-2020 Outstanding Center, Institutes, or Program.
Andrea Palmiotto won the 2020-2021 New Investigator Award in recognition of the multitude of grant-funded, student-employing research projects that she's undertaken in her first three years at IUP. Bill Chadwick received the College of Humanities and Social Sciences Research Award for his ongoing work with Archaeological Services. Archaeological Services allows students to gain paid, hands-on experience in cultural resource management while providing necessary archaeological support to local partners and state and federal agencies.
Abbie Adams and Ben Ford received the 2020-2021 and 2019-2020 High Impact Teaching awards. This award recognizes a faculty member who engages undergraduate students in meaningful research projects. All IUP Anthropology faculty engage students in their research, providing students with much more than a classroom education. The back-to-back recipients of this award are indicative of Anthropology's overall commitment to student research.
Zaakiyah Cua won the 2019-2020 Graduate Student Research award for her geoarchaeological thesis in the Applied Archaeology MA Program, which was also awarded the Society for American Archaeology Paul Goldberg Award. Zaakiyah is now an archaeologist with the US Forest Service.