Faculty in Anthropology / DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY

Anthropology Faculty at PLU

Our faculty comes to PLU from across the country and the world. As important, their research and teaching spans a broad area of contemporary anthropology. Students with interests in archaeology and cultural anthropology will find mentors and teachers that enhance their goals and enrich their education.

The Faculty

Bradford Andrews
Visiting Assistant Professor

Bradford W. Andrews is an anthropological archaeologist who works in both Mesoamerica and North America. He received his Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University in 1999. His primary methodological specialty is lithic technology; this approach focuses on reconstructing stone tool producing behavior by experimentally replicating prehistoric artifacts. He has published an edited volume with Kenneth Hirth (Pathways to Prismatic Blades) and contributed various chapters to other edited volumes (e.g. Mesoamerican Lithic Technology) on his ongoing research with Mesoamerican blade technology. He has also recently published an article on research in Central Pennsylvania (Approaching the Hatch Jasper Quarry from a Technological Perspective, in Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology) and a reevaluation of population estimates for the Mayan site of Sayil, Mexico (Sayil Revisited in Human Ecology). He is currently examining evidence for elite involvement in stone tool production at the site of Xochicalco, Mexico, and researching the economic structure of Formative Hunter-Gatherer/Farmer societies in the Great Basin and West-Central Colorado. His broad interests include the comparative investigation of social complexity, craft production, political economy, and cultural ecology.

Contact Information:
email: andrewbw@plu.edu, telephone: 253-535-8389

Brusco

Elizabeth Brusco
Professor and Chair

Elizabeth Brusco decided to become a cultural anthropologist at the age of 15 after hearing the late great Margaret Mead speak at a small library in rural Connecticut. She went on to receive her B.A. in anthropology from Boston University, and a Ph.D. in anthropology from the City University of New York. She has conducted field research in Columbia, and published a book on the evangelical movement there entitled The Reformation of Machismo (Univ. of Texas Press, 1995). She has also written on gender roles in Columbia and religious persecution in that country. She teaches courses on Latin America, the Pacific Islands, Anthropology of Religion, Kinship and Family, Linguistics, and Anthropological Methods. She was also the founding Chair of the Women's Studies Program at PLU. Her current research interests include religion and culture in the Pacific Islands, and the experiences of new immigrants in the Pacific Northwest.

Contact Information:
email: bruscoee@plu.edu, telephone: 253-535-8744

Guldin

Gregory Guldin
Professor

Greg Guldin is a cultural anthropologist, trained at the University of Wisconsin in anthropology and East Asian Studies (Ph.D. 1978). He specializes in international development issues including ethnicity, urbanization, and social assessment. He has written a number of books published in both English and Chinese. He has undertaken academic research and consulting assignments in China, Russia, and many countries in Asia and has written widely on such topics. He teaches courses on Chinese, Asian, and Jewish cultures.

Contact Information:
email: guldinge@plu.edu, telephone: 253-535-7661

Huelsbeck2

David R. Huelsbeck
Professor

Dave Huelsbeck earned his Ph.D. in archaeology at Washington State University. His research specialize in identifying animal bones as a means to socio-economic complexity among Northwest Coast Native American cultures, especially at the Ozette site. He has also worked in historical archaeology (California Missions and late 19th and early 20th century American Culture). He has developed an applied archaeology program with the US Forest Service. Annual research projects involving students and volunteers have ranged from focusing on prehistoric Native American sites to historic mining and logging camps. Huelsbeck maintains an ongoing relationship with the Makah Tribe, including a J-term course that takes students to the Makah reservation in Neah Bay. In the last 10 years Huelsbeck has published 15 articles on subjects ranging from "The Surplus Economy of the Central Northwest Coast" to "Native American Cultural Continuity at California's Missions." Also, he has authored or co-authored more than 20 reports on subjects ranging from the nature of prehistoric use of alpine meadows in the Washington Cascades to socio-economic indicators among the faunal remains from a restaurant in gold-rush era Skagway, Alaska. He has been Dean of Social Sciences since 2000.

Contact Information:
email: huelsbdr@plu.edu, telephone: 253-535-7196

Klein3

Laura Klein
Professor

Professor Klein earned a Ph.D. in anthropology from New York University with a dissertation topic on women and local level politics in a Tlingit community. She has continued to write about gender and Tlingit issues and has increasingly focused on ethnohistory and medicine. She is currently working with a Jamestown S'Klallam elder videotaping stories and important cultural events. She is also beginning a project on kinship and adoption. She currently chairs the department at PLU. She is the author of Global Perspectives: A Handbook for Understanding Global Issues (Prentice-Hall) with Ann Kelleher, Native American Women and Power (Oklahoma) with Lillian A Ackerman, and Women and Men in World Cultures (McGraw-Hill) as well as a number of articles.

Contact Information:
email: kleinlf@plu.edu, telephone: 253-535-7298

nosaka

Akiko Nosaka
Assistant Professor
Akiko Nosaka received her Ph.D. in anthropology at the Pennsylvania State University in 1997. She conducted fieldwork research on female fertility behavior in relation to their socio-cultural values and norms in rural Bangladesh. Her study results have been published in the Journal of Comparative Family Studies (2000) and the Journal of International Women's Studies (2004). She also conducted research on the inter-generational family relationships of Germans and Turkish immigrants living in Germany. Some of the conclusions from this research have been published in the book Grandmotherhood: The Evolutionary Significance of the Second Half of Female Life (2005, Rutgers University Press). Her core study interests are family and inter-generational relationships, which she approaches by looking at issues such as aging, gender, fertility, migration, and ethnicity.

Contact Information:
email: nosakaaa@plu.edu

Judy Pine
Visiting Assistant Professor
Judy Pine received her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Washington. She is a linguistic anthropologist. Her theoretical interests include language and power, political anthropology, ethnicity and race, and the anthropology of religion. She works with Lahu people, speakers of a Tibeto-Burman language who live in China, Thailand, Burma, and the US, and her fieldwork site is a small Lahu village in the northern part of Chiangmai Province, Thailand. Besides her dissertation, she has a number of book chapters based on her fieldwork.

Experience and Innovations

The PLU department of anthropology has existed since the early 1980s. Some of our faculty were founders of this department while others have joined through the years bringing new ideas and fresh approaches.

DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY