My research focuses on gender studies, urban anthropology, Latin American and Latinx studies. My doctoral research focused on the politics of welfare provision (via housing) and grassroots activism during the Bolivarian period (1998-present) in Venezuela. Through three years (2014-2017) of ethnographic fieldwork in Caracas I looked at how working-class women’s leadership in housing movements shaped claims for land redistribution and struggles for social reproduction in a changing urban environment. Following on my dissertation research I am eager to explore the historical pendular migration between Afro-Colombian rural towns and low-income neighborhoods in Caracas, and the growing Venezuelan diaspora in the U.S., with a specific interest in tracing family trajectories and transnational home and place-making strategies. I have taught courses in urban anthropology, feminist anthropology, ethnographic methods, Latin American and Latinx studies, with a focus on social movements, political economy, and feminist geographies.

Dr. Reichs earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Northwestern University. She specializes in the subfields of bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology, and is one of only 119 forensic anthropologists ever certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology. Dr. Reichs served on the Board of Directors and as Vice President of both the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, and as a member of the National Police Services Advisory Council in Canada. She is a Professor (on leave) in the Department of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. For years Dr. Reichs consulted to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in North Carolina and to the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Québec. She travelled to Africa to testify at the UN Tribunal on Genocide in Rwanda, and helped exhume a mass grave in Guatemala. As part of her work at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA, formerly CILHI) she aided in the identification of war dead from World War II, Korea, and Southeast Asia. As a member of a Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team (DMORT), she assisted in the recovery of remains at the World Trade Center following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. For a period she went to Quantico annually to help teach FBI agents how to detect and recover human remains. In addition to publishing textbooks and academic articles, Dr. Reichs has brought her work experience to a series of forensic thrillers. Kathy’s first novel Déjà Dead catapulted her to fame when it became a New York Times bestseller and won the 1997 Ellis Award for Best First Novel. Her other Temperance Brennan books include Death du Jour, Deadly Décisions, Fatal Voyage, Grave Secrets, Bare Bones, Monday Mourning, Cross Bones, Break No Bones, Bones to Ashes, Devil Bones, 206 Bones, Spider Bones, Flash and Bones, Bones Are Forever, Bones of the Lost, Bones Never Lie, Speaking in Bones and the Temperance Brennan short story collection, The Bone Collection. In addition, Kathy co-authored the Virals young adult series with her son, Brendan Reichs. The best-selling titles are: Virals, Seizure, Code, Exposure, Terminal, and the novella collection Trace Evidence. The series follows the adventures of Temperance Brennan’s great niece, Tory Brennan. Kathy was also a writer and producer on the Fox TV series, Bones, which is based on her work and her novels. On air for twelve seasons, Bones is the longest running scripted drama in the history of the Fox network.

PROFILE: Dr. Andrea Freidus is an Affiliated Faculty member in the Department of Anthropology at UNC Charlotte and Coordinator of the M.A./M.P.H. Program. She specializes in applied and medical anthropology. She also has an MPH in global public health. She has worked in Latin America, Africa, and South Florida. Her research has looked at the rise of grassroots transnational organizations targeting aid to orphans in Malawi, southern Africa. She explores the emerging global connections among volunteers, donors, development workers, program organizers and the directors associated with these organizations and the children they serve. She has also worked on projects that included an examination of risky sexual behavior between female long term tourists and local men in Monteverde, Costa Rica, farmworker experiences with eye injury and access to medical care in Immokalee, Florida, and community experiences with evacuation and relocation in and around Mount Tungurahua in Ecuador. Her most current research examines the rise of volunteer tourism with orphans and the proliferation of International Medical Experiences (whereby undergraduates, medical students, and residents volunteer in health programs in the resource poor contexts).

Freidus Curriculum Vitae

EDUCATION:

• PhD, Michigan State University – Department of Anthropology, 2011
• Dual Degree – MA, MPH University of South Florida –Department of Anthropology and College of Public Health 2005
• BA, Vanderbilt University – Nashville, TN 1999

TEACHING:

• Culture, Health, and Illness (Introduction to Medical Anthropology)
• Health and Human Rights
• Development in Southern Africa

RESEARCH INTERESTS/AREAS OF EXPERTISE:

• Medical Anthropology and Applied Anthropology
• Health and Human Rights Development, Globalization, and Health
• Comparative Child Welfare Tourism, Volunteer Tourism, International Medical Experiences

AWARDS/HONORS/GRANTS:

• Michigan State University Graduate School Dissertation Completion Fellowship, August 2010 – December 2010
• Michigan State University Residential College of the Arts and Humanities Fellowship, August 2009 – May 2010
• Fulbright Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad, January 2008
• U.S. Department of Education Title IV Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships (2005-2008)

SELECT PUBLICATIONS:

• Freidus, Andrea 2016 Unanticipated Outcomes of Voluntourism among Malawi’s Orphans. Journal of Sustainable Tourism. DOI:10.1080/09669582.2016.1263308.
• Freidus, Andrea 2016 Blaming Their Mothers: Policing Childhood through The Learning Channel’s Toddlers in Tiaras. In Cultural Anthropology: Contemporary, Public and Critical Readings, Keri Vacant Brondo, ed. Pgs.453-461. Oxford University Press: New York.
• Freidus, Andrea 2013 “Malawi’s Orphans: Children’s Rights in Relation to Humanitarianism, Compassion, and Childcare.” In Worlds of Human Rights: Ambiguities of Rights Claiming in Africa, A. Hellum, B. Derman, and K. Sandvik, eds. Pgs. 303-332. Brill Publishing: Boston, MA.
• Freidus, Andrea and Anne Ferguson 2013 “Malawi Orphans: The Role of Transnational Humanitarian Organizations.” In Vulnerable Children: Global Challenges in Education, Health, Well-being, and Child Rights. D. Johnson, D. Agbenyiga, and B, Hitchcock, eds. Pgs. 203-213. Springer Press
• Freidus, Andrea 2010 Raising Malawi’s Children: Unanticipated Outcomes Associated with Institutionalized Care. Children and Society 24(4): 293-303.
• Freidus, Andrea 2010 “Saving” Malawi: FAITHFUL responses to orphans and vulnerable children. North American Practicing Anthropology Bulletin 33(1): 50-67.

Received: Ph.D. From: Yale University Specialty: Primatology; Primate Reproduction; Primate Conservation; Madagascar Dr. Brockman is a Research Associate at the Duke University Lemur Center and a member of the Primate Life History Working Group at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, Duke University. http://clas-pages.charlotte.edu/diane-brockman

PROFILE:

Dr. Donna Lanclos is an affiliated faculty member with the Anthropology Department at UNC Charlotte. She currently works as a Consultant and Researcher in Higher and Further Education and Libraries.

Lanclos Curriculum Vitae

EDUCATION:

• PhD, University of California, Bereley – Department of Anthropology
• MA, University of California, Berkeley – Department of Anthropology
• BA, University of California, Santa Barbara – Department of Anthropology

RESEARCH TOPICS/AREAS OF EXPERTISE:

• Folklore
• Socio-cultural Anthropology
• Northern Ireland
• Children and Childhood

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Received: Ph.D. From: New School for Social Research

Specialty: Cultural Anthropology; Ethnicity, Nationalism and Globalism; Caribbean

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Received: Ph. D. From: Tulane University

Specialty: Archaeology, Maya, Latin America.

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Received: Ph.D. From: Syracuse University Specialty: Urban Anthropology, Applied Anthropology, Intercultural Communication, Africa.