Anthropology at PSU
Environmental Anthropology

 

Faculty are conducting research in a variety of contexts, including study of disaster impacts
(specificallythe 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami -Gamburd); using archaeological,
paleoenvironmental, and contemporary records to inform modern resource management
decisions and goals (Butler, Thornton, Vasey); political ecology (Ames, Thornton),
ethnoecology, and environmental justice of land use, conservation, and sustainability
regimes (Thornton); perceptions and cultural constructions of environment, space, and
place (Thornton); the status of primates as endangered species (Vasey); and the evolution
of anthropogenic landscapes (Ames, Butler, Vasey) and faunal assemblages during the
Quaternary (Butler, Vasey).  Our research relies on evolutionary ecology models and
quantitative methods as well as traditional knowledge in addressing human-environmental
relationships. Our work takes us to Sri Lanka, Madagascar, the Great Basin, and the
Pacific Northwest (including coastal Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and the
interior Plateau).

Faculty and students draw heavily on research, field, and classroom experience from other
departments on campus including Geography and Geology (for GIS, climatology,
dendrochronology, geomorphology, human-environmental relationships), and Biology
(vertebrate zoology, evolutionary ecology, conservation biology).