Robert Park:
A master's degree in anthropology is a really useful social science degree.
Jennifer Liu: With anthropological fieldwork, generally, you often go where you don’t expect to go.
I'm a cultural and medical anthropologist and I’m an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology here.
We’re a three-field department looking at social cultural anthropology, archaeological anthropology, and biological anthropology.
And we're committed to conjoining those together and making sure that all our students get a reasonably holistic knowledge of all of those fields.
Maria Liston: In developing our graduate program, we chose to have Public Issues Anthropology.
We’re trying to take the study of Anthropology and apply it to real world problems.
Götz Hoeppe: Unlike Psychologists, Anthropologists look at knowledge as properties of communities,
you know, not necessarily of individuals, and that’s relevant to public issues context, you know, when conflict occurs, as it does so often.
Jennifer Rickert: The public issues side of it makes it really interactive and something that’s applicable to almost anything.
My research is to look into 3D printing and its uses for artifact preservation.
Maria Liston: We have a wonderful faculty here in the anthropology department.
All of them are very good teachers.
Jennifer Liu: Students get a lot of attention and I also get to learn about new things of my own that I don't get through my own research.
I think we all really enjoy our Graduate students.
Maria Liston: I'm supervising a number of graduate students this year, and I think that relationship between supervisor and student is very important.
Marya D’Alessio: My research is in double burials within Mycenaean Greece.
She’ll give me my space to do my research but she’s still, you know, obviously taking an interest in how I'm doing and making sure that I'm on the right track.
Jarred Rundle: My research is interested in looking at the preservation of ballistic trauma in burnt remains.
I was interested in bones since day one. I got to know Dr. Maria Liston and she slowly started to introduce me to forensic anthropology and biological anthropology.
Alisha Adams: The teachers are all very welcoming, they've made it very clear to come ask them questions.
Götz Hoeppe: I’m working on environmental anthropology, and the anthropology of science.
This semester, I’m working with a TA in an undergraduate class on visual anthropology.
In that class, a teaching assistant is like the writing coach for the students.
Maria Liston: We try to offer our graduate students the chance to do field-based research.
Götz Hoeppe: Adjunct faculty members work in archaeological excavations in Ontario and students do get involved in that.
Robert Park: Most of my research is in anthropological archaeology.
I was involved in the search for the lost ships of the Franklin expedition.
I've had students working on my archaeological materials.
Marya D’Alessio: It is a very small department and in that sense it's actually really nice.
Going into a classroom and having four students and one professor is actually really, really incredible
Jarred Rundle: Everyone's really close, you know, we all work together.
It seems everyone's always interested in each other’s topics and they’re always willing to lend a hand.
Maria Liston: Our graduate students have gone on to an array of different career paths.
Götz Hoeppe: some continuing on to PhD programs, others have found jobs in museums, there’s one who works in a forensics department with the Ontario Police.
Marya D’Alessio: If you don't want to go into academia, there’s a lot of other public jobs that are available.
My time here at Waterloo has been really, really rewarding, and really positive.
Alisha Adams: I think the anthropology program here at UW is great because it definitely tries to get all four fields in.
The public issues make it very relevant for today, so I think it makes it a great choice.
Götz Hoeppe: One of the unique features of the Public Issues Anthropology program is that it’s at the University of Waterloo
where there’s such an interest and emphasis on putting knowledge to work.
The idea is to make our students global citizens, acting out there in the world, and that seems to work.
