2014 News Archives
December, 2014 - Completing Graduate Students
Congratulations to our Anthropology graduate students who successfully defended their thesis in 2014:
PhD: Julianna Beaudoin, Jennifer Morgan, Jordan Levy & Kelly Baker
MA: Mbaka Wadham, Steven Naftel, Colleen Haukaas, Mingyuan Zhang, Danielle Alcock, Kristy Nicholson, Emily Wells, Megan Devries, Peige Desjarlais, Jose Sanchez, Tiffany Sarfo & Laura Booth
November 2014
Dr. Marc Blainey - Trent Oshawa Anthropology Lecture Series 2014
Western Anthropology Alumnus Dr. Marc Blainey will be giving a lecture, "Unorthdox Enchantment and Psychedelic Therapy in the Globla Santo Daime Religion" at the Trent Oshawa Anthropology Lecture Series on November 12, 2014. Dr. Blainey is an Instructor with the Department of Anthropology, Trent University, and a Postdoctoral Researcher, Study of Religion, University of Toronto.
October 2014
ROM researchers determine mummy's identity
Researchers have uncovered the real name of a mysterious Egyptian mummy nicknamed Justine. Gayle Gibson, an Egyptologist who teaches at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, was the person who originally nicknamed the mummy Justine. She managed to decipher Justine's real name last week. (Royal Ontario Museum).
James Keron Awarded J. Norman Emerson Medal
At the 41st Annual Meeting of the Ontario Archaeological Society (OAS), held October 24-26, 2014 in Peterborough, James R. Keron was awarded The J. Norman Emerson Medal. The medal is awarded for outstanding contributions by a non-professional archaeologist to the development of Ontario Archaeology and is the “highest honor the Society can bestow.” Jim (B. Math, University of Waterloo) is an individual who long pursued knowledge of Ontario’s archaeological past as an avocation while working full-time in the banking industry. He managed to complete not only his Honours BA (at Waterloo) but also an MA (Western) via part-time study. During that time he authored several publications on London area archaeology, served in several capacities on various OAS executives and was heavily involved in publicizing knowledge of Ontario’s archaeological past to the general public. He is currently completing his Anthropology PhD at Western.
March 2014
Faculty Award:
Mike Spence, Professor Emeritus, has been awarded the Canadian Archaeology Association's Smith-Wintemberg Award for his outstanding contributions to archaeology. For more information about the award, visit the CAA website HERE.
Faculty Interview:
Dr. Dan Jorgensen was interviewed on an Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Late Night Live on March 6, 2013, on "The Ok Tedi Mine and Cultural Implications." A podcast of the interview is available at 9 - Click HERE)
Faculty co-authors article:
Ian Colquhoun of the Department of Anthropology co-authored a recent article, Averting Lemur Extinctions amid Madagascar's Political Crisis, in Science. Ian and his collaborators outline strategies for effective management of Madagascar’s protected areas, the creation of more reserves directly managed by local communities, and a long-term research presence in critical lemur sites.
Native to the shrinking and fragmented tropical and subtropical forests of Madagascar, lemurs are facing grave extinction risks driven by human disturbance of their habitats. Combined with increasing rates of poaching and the loss of funding for environmental programs by most international donors in the wake of the political crisis in Madagascar, challenges to lemur conservation are immense. For full article, click HERE.
Student Helps Solve Crimes:
Watch as our one of our PhD candidates, Renee Willmon, helps solve Canadian cold cases on a new true crime docu-drama series ‘To Catch A Killer’. March 1, 2014 @ 8:00 pm on OWN Canada.
