Our mission is to expand students’ abilities to critically engage with fundamental issues concerning how humans inhabit the world. We prepare undergraduate and graduate students with the technical and theoretical skills to become successful, compassionate individuals suited for a diverse range of careers.
Undergraduate students receive a well-rounded education in three anthropological subdisciplines and may earn either the Bachelor of Arts or the Bachelor of Science degree. Students may focus on one or more subdiscipline, or may deepen their studies in one of our specialized options, including medical anthropology and global health, anthropology of globalization, archaeological sciences, Indigenous archaeology, and human evolutionary biology. Many of our undergraduates conduct original research, supervised by or in collaboration with anthropology faculty, providing the rare opportunity to practice qualitative and quantitative research skills at the bachelor’s degree level. Students have gone on to graduate training in anthropology, but also in fields as diverse as education, law, business, medicine, and public administration. Others pursue careers in social work and advocacy, advertising, sales, land management, and environmental protection.
We offer three graduate programs, with the unique opportunity to earn a Public Health M.A. concurrently with an Anthropology Ph.D. Our doctoral students hold a strong commitment to social change and justice in their research. Graduate students also collaborate with many other disciplines, creating rich cross-disciplinary partnerships for their research. Notably, we aim to support graduate research through our distinctive pilot research funds, allowing students to conduct research in their first year and immediately gain experience, hone quantitative and qualitative research skills, and produce rigorous, quality research.
Our students have access to resources that include cutting edge laboratories, undergraduate field schools in the U.S. and abroad, partnerships with dozens of programs and centers across campus, and community partnerships with numerous groups, from Seattle Children’s Hospital to the International Rescue Committee.
Students
Autumn 2020
- 512 Undergraduate majors
- 55 Graduate students
Degrees Awarded
September 2019 - August 2020
- 220 Bachelor of Arts degrees
- 23 Bachelor of Science degrees
- 4 Master of Arts degrees
- 5 PhD degrees
Major Student Awards
2019 - 2020
- 2 NSF Graduate Research Fellowships (GRFP)
- 1 Wadsworth International Dissertation Fellowship (Wenner-Gren Foundation)
- 1 GO-Map Stroum Dissertation Fellowship
- 3 Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship (FLAS)
- 1 Graduate School Presidential Dissertation Fellowship
- 1 Simpson Center Society of Scholars Fellowship
- 1 Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad
- 1 American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) Junior Fellowship
