Department of Anthropology

Kent State University’s season of giving launched on Nov. 1 with Giving Tuesday, a monthlong celebration of philanthropy. Now halfway through the campaign, the generosity of the Kent State community has already begun to shine. 

The Farris Family Innovation Awards support the research of tenure-track faculty members who are not yet tenured at Kent State and who have shown promising drive for their field of study. In May 2021, Faculty Affairs announced the recipients of this year's Farris Family Innovation Awards: Michelle Bebber, assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology, and Elda Hegmann, assistant professor in the Materials Science Graduate Program. 

Kent State has announced the winners of the 2021 New Faculty Outstanding Research and Scholarship Awards (ORSAs). The ORSAs recognize the hard work of junior faculty members who have been with Kent State for less than 10 years. The 2021 winners are Shana Klein, Ph.D., in the School of Art and Metin Eren, Ph.D., in the Department of Anthropology. 

In 2019, a team of researchers in Kent State’s Department of Anthropology published its “prize-winning” research article titled “Experimental replication shows knives manufactured from frozen human feces do not work” in the Journal of Archaeological Science. (Yes, the jokes are seemingly endless, but seriously folks, there is an important underlying message here about evidence-based research and fact-checking!)

The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently awarded Kent State a three-year, $298,000 International Research Experience for Students (IRES) grant that will allow graduate students to travel to Kyoto University in Japan to study primates and human evolution at the world-renowned Primate Research Institute.

Mary Ann Raghanti, Ph.D., anthropology professor and chair in the College of Arts and Sciences at Kent State University, is involved in a collaborative research project to examine heart disease in gorillas.