Theses and Dissertations
Source: https://anthro.ucla.edu/academics/graduate/theses-and-dissertations/ Parent: https://anthro.ucla.edu/
Booklets – M.A. Recipients & Ph.D. Graduates
2024-25 Theses, Reports, and Dissertations
Master’s Theses & Reports
Brenda de Groot, M.A.\ Patterns and Dynamics of Infant Transfers in Hatinh Langurs (Trachypithecus hatinhensis) and Delacour’s Langurs (T. delacouri)\ Chair: H. Clark Barrett, Ph.D.
Isabella Ding, M.A.\ Cyborg Metrics: Biopower, Race, and the Political Economy of Biometric Surveillance\ Chair: Purnima Mankekar, Ph.D.
Aiko Dzikowski, M.A.\ Japanese American Princess: A Linguistic Anthropological Approach to Transnational Identity, Political Ideology, and Pageantry within the Nikkei Community\ Chair: Paul Kroskrity, Ph.D.
Erick Matus, M.A.\ Puttin it on the Map: Rap Music, Gentrification, and the Lyrical Cartography of Los Angeles\ Co-Chairs: H. Samy Alim, Ph.D. and Jason De León, Ph.D.
Edson Morales Sanchez, M.A.\ The Logics of a Pro-Housing Organization: YIMBY and its (Im)potence\ Co-Chairs: Philippe Bourgois, Ph.D. and Laurie Kain Hart, Ph.D.
Carolyn Park, M.A.\ Language as/at Work: Metapragmatic Awareness Among Koreatown’s Restaurant Workers\ Chair: Norma Mendoza-Denton, Ph.D.
Cathy Román, M.A.\ ‘The Birthkeeper within Us’: Analyzing Los Angeles’ Birthworkers of Color Communities through the History of Obstetrics in the United States\ Chair: Ippolytos Kalofonos, Ph.D.
Sienna Ruiz, M.A.\ Externalized Bodies: Migration, Affect, and the Politics of Care in the Mexican Refugee System\ Chair: Jason De León, Ph.D.
Kasey Schleper, M.A.\ Exploring the Structural Relationship Between Acculturation, Support, and Breastfeeding among Puerto Rican Mothers Living in the Mainland US\ Chair: Brooke Scelza, Ph.D.
Mason Smith, M.A.\ These Cows Are My Children: Biotechnology and Agrarian Labor in Kazakhstan\ Co-Chairs: Nancy Levine, Ph.D. and Christopher Kelty, Ph.D.
Doctoral Dissertations
Bader Mohammad Alfarhan, Ph.D.\ Co-Chairs: Erin Debenport, Ph.D. and Jemima Pierre, Ph.D.
Burcu Buğu, Ph.D.\ Navigating State Power: Urban Space, Memory, and Affect in Dersim, Turkey\ Chair: Salih Can Açiksöz, Ph.D.
Stephanie Keeney Parks, Ph.D.\ “Gaming the System”: How Black Families Navigate “Autism” at the Intersection of Race and Disability\ Chair: H. Samy Alim, Ph.D.
Daniel Kennedy, Ph.D.\ No Place Like Home: Dwelling, Relationality, and Resistance with Unhoused Kansans\ Co-Chairs: C. Jason Throop, Ph.D. and Helena Hansen, MD, Ph.D.
Jeremy Levenson, Ph.D.\ Breaking the Chains from Inside: Los Angeles’ Carceral Psychiatric Fix and Jail (Dis-)Alienation\ Chair: Philippe Bourgois, Ph.D.
Karime Parodi Ambel, Ph.D.\ Gendering Justice in the Chilean Courts: Legal Actors’ Perspectives and Unequal Access to Justice\ Co-Chairs: Laurie Kain Hart, Ph.D. and M. Kamari Clarke, Ph.D.
Kimberly Zhu, Ph.D.\ Multi-Omic Investigations of Human Adaptations to High-Altitude Hypoxia in the Himalayas and Andes\ Chair: Abigail Bigham, Ph.D.
2023-24 Theses, Reports, and Dissertations
Master’s Theses & Reports
Elizabeth Arnold, M.A.\ Unveiling Diasporic Markets: An Archaeology of Consumption in California’s Chinatowns\ Chair: Monica L. Smith, Ph.D.
Natalie Finnegan, M.A.\ Mitochondrial DNA for phylogeny building: Assessing individual and grouped mtGenes as proxies for the mtGenome in platyrrhines\ Chair: Jessica Lynch, Ph.D.
Thomas Gabriel Gerz, M.A.\ Colonialism; Language Ideologies; Linguistic Landscape; Ryukyuan Languages; US Military & Okinawa\ Chair: Erin Debenport, Ph.D.
Sophie Elizabeth Klitgaard, M.A.\ An Evolutionary Approach to Privacy\ Co-Chairs: H. Clark Barrett, Ph.D. and Daniel Fessler, Ph.D.
Leroy F. Moore, M.A.\ Krip-Hop Nation: Community-Based Education at the Intersection of Blackness & Disability\ Co-Chairs: H. Samy Alim, Ph.D. and Norma Mendoza-Denton, Ph.D.
Doctoral Dissertations
Vincent M. Belletto, Ph.D.\ Attitudes of Loss: A Phenomenological Analysis of Identity, Cultural Shift, and Language Death Among the Unserdeutsch Creole German Community of Australia\ Chair: C. Jason Throop, Ph.D.
Blake Erickson, Ph.D.\ Challenges to Psychiatric Care: A Clinical and Anthropological Analysis of Psychosis and Dependency\ Chair: Laurie Kain Hart, Ph.D.
Aditi Anand Halbe, Ph.D.\ Trademarks of Tradition: Artisan Labor, Development and Place making in Rural India\ Chair: Akhil Gupta, Ph.D.
Delaney Knorr, Ph.D.\ Embodied experiences: a mixed-methods approach to understanding stress and resilience in Latina mothers\ Chair: Molly Fox, Ph.D.
Naakoshie Awurama Mills, Ph.D.\ Cultures of Foreign Policymaking: State Department Diplomats and Race in US-Africa Strategy\ Chair: Laurie Kain Hart, Ph.D.
Molly Theodora Billings Oringer, Ph.D.\ Spatial Relations: Post-War Reconstruction and the Afterlives of Jewish Terrains in Lebanon\ Co-Chairs: Laurie Kain Hart, Ph.D. and Susan Slyomovics, Ph.D.
Rachel Parks, Ph.D.\ Translating Pain, Communicating Care: Representing Expertise, Kinship, and Disability Through the DisDAT Form\ Chair: C. Jason Throop, Ph.D.
Reuven Sinensky, Ph.D.\ Early Agriculture and Indigenous Foodways in the US Southwest and Mesoamerica: Cuisine and Social Change in Mobile Farming Societies\ Chair: Gregson Schachner, Ph.D.
Jaime Vela, Ph.D.\ Diabetes Prevention Strategies for the Diné: Cultural Learning to Implement change. A Qualitative Study\ Chair: Russell Thornton, Ph.D.
Sasha Lutz Winkler, Ph.D.\ Evolutionary Perspectives on Play and Laughter\ Co-Chairs: Erica Cartmill, Ph.D. and Susan Perry, Ph.D.
Haoyan Zhuang, Ph.D.\ Collective Individualization: Co-living among Youth in Contemporary China\ Co-Chairs: Nancy E. Levine, Ph.D. and Yunxiang Yan, Ph.D.
2022-23 Theses, Reports, and Dissertations
Master’s Theses & Reports
Madison Aubey, MA
The Archaeology of Sovereignty: Africatown, Black Mobile, and Resistive Consumption
Chair: Justin P. Dunnavant
Amber Kela Chong, MA
Experiments in Sovereignty: Cultivating ʻĀina Momona at Waipā
Chair: Jessica Cattelino\
Dani Heffernan, MA
Constructing the “Cisgender Listening Subject”: Trans-Feminine Speakers’ Commentaries on Voice and Being Heard
Chair: Norma Mendoza-Denton\
Sally Li, MA
Racial and temporal differences in fertility-education tradeoffs highlight the effect of economic opportunities on optimum family size in the US
Chair: Brooke Scelza\
Robin Stevland Meyer-Lorey, MA
Manifest Destiny in Southeast Asia: Archaeology of American Colonial Industry in the Philippines, 1898-1987
Chair: Stephen Acabado\
Victoria Newhall, MA.
Evaluating the Role of Foodways During Large-Scale Socio-Political Transformations at Formative Tres Zapotes
Co-Chairs: Richard Lesure and Gregson Schachner\
Wanda Quintanilla Duran, MA
Chair: Jason De León\
The Force of Intimacy in a Honduran Community
Nicole Smith, M.A.
From Exile to Eviction: Garífuna Indigeneity, Land Rights, and Heritage in Roatán, Honduras
Co-Chairs: Jason De León and Justin Dunnavant
Doctoral Dissertations
Steven Ammerman, PhD
Human-Animal Interaction at the Ancient Urban Site of Sisupalgarh, India
Chair: Monica L. Smith
Spencer Chao-Long Chen, PhD
Dubbing Ideologies: The Politics of Language and Acoustic Aesthetics in Taiwan’s Mandarin-Voiceover Production
Chair: Paul V. Kroskrity
Kristine Joy Chua, PhD
Environmental, Biological, and Cultural Influences on Health and Behavior
Chair: Abigail Bigham
Rodney R. Gratreaks Jr., PhD
Talking to the Wind: Towards an Understanding of Numic Verbal Art and Language Planning in the Village of Shaxwapats
Chair: Paul V. Kroskrity
Emily Virginia Jones, PhD
A Violent Operation: Trauma Surgery, Policing, and the Politics of Care in a Los Angeles County Public Hospital
Chair: Laurie Kain Hart
Sucharita Kanjilal, PhD
Home Chefs: Indian Households Produce for the Global Creator Economy
Chair: Akhil Gupta
Andrew E. MacIver, Ph.D.
The Shang-Zhou Transition: Immanence, Power, and the Micropolitics of Encounter
Chair: Li Min
Joshua L. Mayer, PhD
Conjuring Territory: Afro-Indigenous Authority and Settler Capitalism in Nicaragua
Chair: Shannon Speed
Bianca Romagnoli, PhD
Patrolling North of 60: Military Infrastructure in Canada’s Arctic Communities
Co-Chairs: Salih Can Açiksöz and Laurie Kain Hart
Theodore Samore, PhD
Traditionalism, Pathogen Avoidance, and Competing Tradeoffs During a Global Threat
Chair: Daniel M.T. Fessler
William James Schlesinger, PhD
The Production and Governance of Risky Sexual Subjectivity in the Era of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) to HIV
Chair: Salih Can Açiksöz
Saliem Wakeem Shehadeh, PhD
Researching the General Union of Palestine Students from the Diaspora
Co-Chairs: Jemima Pierre and Susan Slyomovics
Madeleine Amee Yakal, PhD
Spanish Colonialism in Bikol, Philippines: Localizing Devotion to Our Lady of Peñafrancia
Chair: Stephen Acabado
2021-22 Theses, Reports, and Dissertations
Master’s Theses & Reports
Emilia Rose Ørsted Holmbeck, MA
Contextualizing PTSD as Diagnosis and Intervention: Situating Trauma and the Subjective Experience of Suffering in Locally Meaningful Worlds
Co-Chairs: Douglas W. Hollan & Linda Garro\
Jewell Ruth-Ella Humphrey, MA
Harboring History: A Maritime Archaeological Analysis of an 18th Century Shipwreck in Coral Bay, St. Jan
Co-Chairs: Stephen Acabado & Justin Dunnavant\
Lillian Kohn, MA
Public Mourning, Online Spaces: Virtual Memorialization and Binational Grief in Israel-Palestine
Chair: Susan Slyomovics\
NaaKoshie Awurama Mills, MA
Par for the Corps: Black Diplomats and Race in U.S. Foreign Policy
Chair: Laurie Hart\
Abdullah Puckett, MA
Decarceration and Social Justice Activism in South Central LA
Chair: Philippe Bourgois
\ Matthew James Schneider, MA
Against Accountability: Policing and Public Knowledge in Los Angeles
Chair: Hannah Appel\
Doğa Tekin, MA
Claiming Big Sur: How Places Enter Semiosis
Co-Chairs: Erin Debenport & Paul V. Kroskrity\
Kimberly Tanya Zhu, MA
Genomic Features Underlying Andean High-Altitude Adaptive Hemoglobin Levels
Chair: Abigail Bigham\
Doctoral Dissertations
Brittany Nicole Florkiewicz, PhD
Properties of Facial Signaling in Captive Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)
Chair: Brooke Scelza\ \ Yanina Gori, PhD
Re/mediating Revolution: Cultivating Solidarity in a Cuban Queer Community
Co-Chairs: Hannah Appel & C. Jason Throop\
Jananie Kalyanaraman, PhD
Window seats: Making connection through transport and mobility in Bengaluru city, India
Chair: Akhil Gupta
\ Eva Rose Melstrom, PhD
The Gate of Weeping: Ethiopian Women Returning from Domestic Work in the Arab States of the Persian Gulf
Co-Chairs: Douglas W. Hollan & C. Jason Throop\
Zachary Mondesire, PhD
Region-craft: An Ethnography of South Sudan’s Transnational Intelligentsia
Chair: Hannah Appel\
Lauren Textor, PhD
Deserving Abandonment: Governing Pain and Addiction across U.S. Opioid Landscapes
Co-Chairs: Philippe Bourgois & Laurie Hart
2020-21 Theses and Dissertations
Master’s Theses
Sara Isabel Castro Font, MA
Hipsters, Drunks, Tourists, and Locals: Calle Loíza as a Site of Ideological Contestation
Co-Chairs: Erin Debenport & Paul V. Kroskrity
Lilit Ghazaryan, MA
Speak Beautifully – Language Policies and Practices in Public Kindergartens in Armenia
Chair: Erica Cartmill
Nicco Amedeo La Mattina, MA
“Giving the Meaning” as a Social Practice on Pantelleria: The Metasemantics of Atttunement
Chair: Alessandro Duranti
Alessandra May Laurer Rosen, MA
Semiotic Labors of Personalization: Modernization and Access in an American Yoga School
Co-Chairs: Erin Debenport & Paul V. Kroskrity
Danielle Leigh Steinberg, MA
A robust tool kit: first report of tool use in crested capuchin monkeys (Sapajus robustus)
Chair: Jessica Lynch
Jessie Serene Stoolman, MA
Writing Letters and Reading against the Grain of Anthropology’s Past
Chair: Aomar Boum
Donghyoun We, MA
Food and Restaurants: A Review of the Literature and Exploratory Observations of Restaurant Pivots in LA in the Time of COVID-19
Chair: Akhil Gupta
Madeleine Louise Zoeller, MA
Eye See You: Investigating Predictors of the Evil Eye
Chair: Joseph Manson
Doctoral Dissertations
Farzad Amoozegar-Fassaie, PhD
The Pursuit of Happiness and the Other: Being a Syrian Refugee Child in America
Co-Chairs: Alessandro Duranti & C. Jason Throop
Theresa Hill Arriola, PhD
Securing Nature: Militarism, Indigeneity and the Environment in the Northern Mariana Islands
Chair: Jessica Cattelino
Yael Assor, PhD
Objectivity as a Bureaucratic Virtue: The Lived Experience of Objectivity in an Israeli Medical Bureaucracy
Chair: C. Jason Throop
Amanda Jean Bailey, PhD
Alluvial Hope: The Transformative Practices of Placemaking at a Montana Tribal College
Co-Chairs: Paul V. Kroskrity & Cheryl Mattingly
Hannah Addaline Carlan, PhD
Producing Prosperity: Language and the Labor of Development in India’s Western Himalayas
Chair: Alessandro Duranti
Alejandro Suleman Erut, PhD
Lying: an anthropological approach
Chair: H. Clark Barrett
Nafis Aziz Hasan, PhD
Techno-politics of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) – Investigating Practices and Social Relations in Indian Public Bureaucracies
Chair: Akhil Gupta
Tanya Ruth Matthan, PhD
The Monsoon and the Market: Economies of Risk in Rural India
Chair: Akhil Gupta
Agatha Evangeline Palma, PhD
The Migrant, The Mediterranean, and the Tourist: Figures of Belonging in Post-Austerity Palermo
Co-Chairs: Aomar Boum & Laurie Kain Hart
Sonya Rao, PhD
Privatizing Language Work: Interpreters and Access in Los Angeles Immigration Court
Chair: Paul V. Kroskrity
Alexander Malcolm Thomson, PhD
Mesologues: An Ethnobibliographic Study of Cultural and Lingual Politics in Contemporary Brittany
Co-Chairs: Laurie Kain Hart & Paul V. Kroskrity
2019-20 Theses, Reports, and Dissertations
Master’s Theses & Reports
Ulises Espinoza, MA
Intuitions on Ownership Among the Achuar of Southeastern Ecuador
Chair: H. Clark Barrett
Eden Franz, MA
Cultural and Interspecific Symbiosis at Salemi, Sicily: Exploring Colonial and Human-Animal Interactions Through Faunal Analysis
Chair: Monica L. Smith
Joelle Julien, MA
Haitian Migration to Tijuana, Mexico: Black Migrants and the Political Economy of Race and Migration
Chair: Jemima Pierre
Eric Andrew Sinski, MA
Imagined Communities: Patriotic Sentiment Among Chinese Students Abroad in the Era of Xi Jinping
Chair: Yunxiang Yan
Sasha Lutz Winkler, MA
The Development of Sex Differences in Play in Wild White-Faced Capuchins
Chair: Erica Cartmill
Doctoral Dissertations
Katelyn Jo Bishop, PhD
Ritual Practice, Ceremonial Organization, and the Value and Use of Birds in Prehispanic Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, 800-1150 CE
Co-Chairs: Richard Lesure & Gregson Schachner
Molly Josette Bloom, PhD
Thick Sociality: Community, Disability, and Language in Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation
Chair: Norma Mendoza-Denton
Courtney Evelyn Cecale, PhD
Scientific Governance and the Cultural Politics of Climate Change Adaptation in the Peruvian Andes
Chair: Jessica Cattelino
Amy Marie Garey, PhD
The People’s Laughter: War, Comedy, and the Soviet Legacy
Chair: Nancy E. Levine
Kotrina Kajokaite, PhD
Social relationships in wild white-faced capuchin monkeys (Cebus capucinus): Insights from new modeling approaches
Chair: Susan Perry
Matthew Richard McCoy, PhD
Unsettling Futures: Morality, Time, and Death in a Divided Belfast Community
Chair: C. Jason Throop
Dalila Isoke Ozier, PhD
City of Magic: Aesthetic Value in the Los Angeles Magic Scene
Chair: Sherry B. Ortner
Mindy Gayle Steinberg, PhD
Legal Status and the Everyday Lives of Mexican-Origin Youth in Los Angeles: Family, Gratitude, and the High School Transition
Chair: Thomas S. Weisner
Christopher Shawn Stephan, PhD
“Focus on the Users”: Empathy, Anticipation, and Perspective-Taking in Healthcare Architecture
Chair: C. Jason Throop
Anoush Tamar Suni, PhD
Palimpsests of Violence: Ruination and the Politics of Memory in Anatolia
Chair: Susan Slyomovics
Gwyneth Ursula Jean Talley, PhD
Gunpowder Women: Gender, Kinship & Horses in Moroccan Equestrian Performance
Co-Chairs: Nancy E. Levine & Susan Slyomovics