FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions about Careers in Physical Anthropology
Frequently Asked Questions about Careers in Physical Anthropology
As part of the Careers in Physical Anthropology portion of the AAPA website, the Career Development Committee has created this page on which frequently asked questions from students, or new Ph.D.’s, can be answered by the Committee. In the interest of helping as many people as possible, the Committee would like to encourage people to send questions to the Chair of the Committee, Dr. Joel Irish at jdirish@alaska.edu. Questions can cover anything related to preparing for a career in physical anthropology (e.g., coursework, CV, job talks, interviewing, meeting talks, etc.). They will then be forwarded to the Committee for input, and those deemed most generally applicable will be posted here with a response from the Committee.
An undergraduate student writes in with the following question:
Dear Career Development Committee:
I am an undergraduate student at ____________ State University. Currently I am a senior studying biological anthropology. I was searching the internet to gain more information about possible job opportunities in the field, other than a position at a University. I read the AAPA webpage, and it said to contact you in order to gain more information about job opportunities in the field and wanted to know more about that. Thank you for your time, and I really appreciate your help.
Sincerely,
Name Withheld
Career Development Committee Response:
The emergence of opportunities outside the university appears primarily in biomedical research. Biomedical interests overlap with those of biological anthropologists. Biomedical scientists focus on issues concerning public health, growth and development, nutrition, aging, disease, pathology, epidemiology, genetics, physiology, and forensic science. The theoretical bases of evolution, human adaptation, biological human variation and their relationship to cultural factors including nutrition (e.g., metabolic syndrome) are particularly relevant to biomedical applications. A growing number of biological anthropologists are bringing these orientations and skills to full-time research careers in private industry and schools of medicine and public health.
The book by Al Ryan (see reference below) was written in response to the need of providing students with a reference they can use when contemplating a career in biological anthropology within and outside academia. It describes several career paths that biological anthropologists have taken, and how anthropological theory, methods, and training have been useful for job acquisition and career development. Other references that describe alternative careers for anthropologists are also available.
Ryan, AS, editor. A Guide to Careers in Physical Anthropology, Westport, Connecticut: Bergin & Garvey, 2002.
A recent Ph.D. graduate writes in with the following comments:
Dear Career Development Committee:
I have discovered an inconvenient surprise at the end of my doctoral training. Other graduate students might find this information helpful on the 'Careers in Physical Anthropology FAQ' page. My intention was to defend my dissertation and use the time between the defense and the start of a post-doc to publish my dissertation research. To my surprise, many journals consider re-using data first published in a dissertation self plagiarism. Moreover, my university has encouraged all students to publish their dissertations in an open access online database. While open access is a promising idea, many publishers refuse to publish data that has previously been published in such a database.
Best,
Name Withheld
Career Development Committee response:
Thanks for the input; however, we do not believe the problem you mention is as serious as you maintain. It is common practice to publish journal articles out of your dissertation OR to actually publish your dissertation in book format through an actual publisher. Many people we know have done this. Your dissertation is not technically published, in the sense of going through an actual publisher; it is instead publish-on-demand. Your university making you publish your dissertation on line is becoming more common. But again, it should not prohibit you from using the data to write articles, a published book, etc.
The AAPA Career Development Committee
The Committee consists of a range of physical anthropologists, including: a Ph.D. student, individuals in traditional university teaching positions, and clinical- and medical-oriented professionals. The individuals on Career Development Committee are:
Committee Chair:
Dr. Joel D. Irish
Professor and Chair
Curator of Biological Anthropology
Department of Anthropology
310 Eielson Building
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Fairbanks, AK 99775-7720
(907) 474-6755
Committee Members:
Dr. D. Troy Case
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Dept of Sociology & Anthropology
Box 8107
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695
(919) 515-9024
Dr. Brian Hemphill
Professor of Anthropology
California State University, Bakersfield
Dept of Sociology & Anthropology
9001 Stockdale Highway
Bakersfield, CA 93311
(661) 654-2368
Dr. Marquisa LaVelle
Professor of Anthropology
Dept of Sociology/Anthropology
505 Chafee Hall
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, RI 02892
(401) 874-4077
Marilyn R. London
Lecturer
Department of Anthropology
1111Woods Hall
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
(301) 933-1973
Dr. Linda M. Gerber
Director, Biostatistics and Research Methodology Core
Professor of Public Health and Medicine
Weill Medical College of Cornell University
411 East 69th Street
New York, NY 10021
(212) 746-2153
Dr. Elizabeth Miller
Associate Professor
California State University, LA
Dept of Anthropology
5151 State University Dr
Los Angeles, CA 90032
(323) 343-2442
Kent Johnson
Department of Anthropology
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-2402
(480) 965-6213
Dr. Alan S. Ryan
Executive Director of Clinical Research
Martek Biosciences Corp
6480 Dobbin Road
Columbia, MD 21045
(443) 542-2591
Dr. Scott E. Burnett
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Eckerd College
St. Petersburg, FL 33711
(727) 864-8932
Dr. Loren Lease
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Youngstown State University
Youngstown, OH 44555
(330) 941-1686
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