PhD Program

The Department of Anthropology offers a PhD designed to provide a broad background in all significant facets of the discipline—biological, archaeological and sociocultural, analytic as well as descriptive—while still encouraging specialization. It provides training both for students interested in an academic career in anthropology and for those concerned with practical issues approached from the integrative perspective of anthropology. Each student’s program of study includes training in anthropological theory and methods, issues and problems in sociocultural anthropology, archaeology, and physical anthropology, as well as topics that focus on the student’s area of particular interest.

Interdisciplinary research is actively encouraged, and many faculty and student projects involve collaborations with other departments and programs at UWM as well as a wide range of national and international institutions. PhD students undertake a dissertation project, which includes passing preliminary exams and complete and obtaining approval for a dissertation proposal. Students must orally defend their dissertation to complete the degree.

The purpose of the program is to train Anthropology PhD’s who can go on to teach at the university level but also, and increasingly, to contribute to private enterprise and to policy-making in a wide variety of different areas. As an example, in the last 10 years, we have produced 13 archaeology PhDs. Of these, five are employed as college or university instructors, one is a museum educator, one is a university research administrator, one works for a state CRM regulatory agency, and five are employed as Principal Investigators by private sector CRM firms.

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  Anthropology, PhD

  DoctoralOn Campus